Healing Back Pain: I Did It, You Can Do It

Back pain has been a professional specialty of mine since 1999. I should say, back pain relief has been my specialty since that time. That professional focus arose directly from my personal experience with spine surgery and my expert training in functional movement.

It seems odd to me that hundreds of people each year are trained as personal trainers with certifications in “functional training,” yet I rarely meet someone who can teach what I teach, how I teach it. They don’t really understand the deep core musculature. They don’t really know what stretches or exercises accomplish what gains. They don't really understand the progressions that help clients--who've been in active pain for weeks, months, or decades--get a truly strong core and a pain-free back.

And then it finally dawned on me: It’s my personal experience with back pain that makes my style or method of teaching so effective.

I’ve lived back pain. I’ve survived back surgery. I’ve struggled through recovery, not just from that, but from a traumatic hip surgery as well. I know exactly what it’s like to suffer those few hours when one pain pill is wearing off, and it’s too soon to take another; to roll the wrong way in bed and have pain make me cry; to struggle through just a couple tiny physical therapy movements when I know that I have to complete dozens more in order for my range of motion to return and my muscles not to atrophy further.

I’ve been faced with many physical challenges for the last 25+ years of my life.

But here’s the thing: I’m still here. I’m still active. I’m still pain free.

And that’s what I bring to this field of back-pain management (and functional movement training) that others simply don’t: first-hand experience, first-hand struggle, first-hand success and triumph.

Because of my own experience, I have an undying belief—rather, a knowing—that you, too, can overcome whatever obstacles (physical, emotional, spiritual) you’re facing, and come out the other side a pain-free, thriving, integrated person. I’ve seen it happen time and again with clients and students of mine. And I invite you to join us.

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