Besides working with our personal training and fitness bootcamp clients, I often work with people who need help with injury rehab / injury prevention. Today I just had a consultation with a competitive floorball and soccer player complaining of “unexplained” back pain. This is quite a common type of back pain that seems to come and go. It isn’t the kind caused by a bulging disk that you can get from lifting a weight improperly, or from twisting yourself into an un-natural position.

When visiting most back health people, they would focus on – no surprise – the back. Adjustments, massage, or even acupuncture, usually focus on the site of the injury.

However, because this client is extremely active in many sports this means a few things…

• He has to train alot to get good
• To get good at a particular skill e.g. kicking a soccer ball, you need to do thousands of repetitions of that skill
• All sports have “overuse” patterns – the movement most done in that sport
• All overuse patterns lead to some parts being tight/short and some parts being long
• The uneven length and tightness of the various muscles leads to them pulling on the connective tissue (called fascia) unevenly, twisting the body gradually over time, leading to poor function and likely, pain.

I experienced this myself because I played six years of competitive softball, and I must have swung the bat thousands of times in one direction and nearly zero times in the other. I also used one hand to throw with that same direction of twisting. That is why one side of my body is tighter than the other and it has taken alot of massage and stretching to get things back to somewhere near normal.

So… for this client, we assessed his range of motion all over his body and found out where he was out of balance. We used acupressure and stretching techniques to help balance him out, and within 10 mins, he was pain free. I also taught him how to do these stretches at home to keep his new found range of motion.

These methods are by no means “magical” although the fast results may appear to be! But I do know that there are many people who can benefit from a personalized stretching program. That is why I have managed to get my Australian colleague and stretching expert Keith to come to Singapore to give a stretching seminar. 3 hours of pure usable knowledge that will help you customize a stretching program to keep you pain free and flexible forever!

Check it out here, its a once in a lifetime opportunity:)

BTW thats Keith in action in the picture.