“I developed back problems in my late 20’s when I started running…so I was told to stop running. Over the following 30 years my back pain would improve then worsen but never went away – I had pain every day. I had a disc bulge in the L4-L5 and L5-S1 areas and would ‘put my back out’ every few years or so, sometimes just by tying up my shoelaces. After rest it would just recover to where it was before.
Like a lot of people I sought treatments over the years – osteopaths, physios, sports physios, muscular skeletal doctors, acupuncturists, and whilst I did exercises nothing really worked and I was resigned to my fate.
And then I put my back out 18mths ago which didn’t recover. I had new scans and back specialist advice which was for no surgery and to try yoga. After 6 months of cortisone jabs, yoga and physio, nothing was working – the will was there but I realised nobody could tell me exactly how I could make it better. My back was seriously affecting my life, I couldn’t get comfortable in any position and couldn’t stand for more than a minute. I was in a pretty low place.
I went to Brian on a recommendation. He identified that my hips/glutes hadn’t worked properly for a long time and that my back was doing all the work. So step 1 was to identify my posture and movements that were causing this and aggravating everything.
Step 2 was to work on exercises to address my core weaknesses. Initially I had a hard time understanding the concepts but gradually it all started to click. As my strength improved Brian constantly tweaked my exercises and fed in new ones. Movement is key!
It’s been a long path for me because 30 year old bad habits die hard! But I can now stand for hours and am a lot stronger. I still have a way to go but I know now what I need to do, what works for me, and am well on the way to beating this thing.
I can’t thank Brian enough for guiding me through all of the confusion, to clarify what was going on and then to show me the path forward. “