Hey guys, I have a case with a client of mine. He has had a history of lower back pain for a long time. We worked on that years ago and resolved it. He came back to me a few years later and now struggles with neck pain. Mainly on the right side, his right shoulder and neck are very flared up and aggravated. His assessment findings are as such. He has a significant lateral hip shift to the right. His right foot in inverted and left foot everted. He has no stability in both in any plane of motion. His left lateral hip causes a lot of issues because he cannot load it at all. So any type of load hurts him tremendously. His right side is very compressed and right shoulder sits lower than the left. His t spine doesn't move well at all and nor do his ribs. T spine lateral flexion is worse on the right side. T spine rotation is worse on the right as well. Shoulder flexion is very limited, especially due to his lack of t spine extension. Both shoulder are winging but his right one is tipped anteriorly pretty excessively. He works on a desk and his sitting habit gets him flared up all the time. He is unable to focus at work, his neck tenses up and starts hurting him. What happens is he starts of well and about an hour in he ends up very rounded in the spine and shoulders and starts hurting. He then "fixes" his posture by tensing his t spine into extension and just hold it there. Making things much worse. I have been working with him for 2 months and he still gets lots of flare up and is hurting. His stress levels are high and sleep isn't great. lol quite a lot isn't it. So what i have done is i taught him about his capacity. That stress, sleep, diet, recovery all play a role in flare ups. So now when a flare up happens he doesn't get as stressed. I have given him some t spine extension work which helped him a lot with his overhead shoulder movement. I urged him not to brace his t spine as he exercises and sits. I also gave him some neck drills such as shrugs with more protraction and a long neck when he executes. We work on breathing drills to down regulate his nervous system and general push and pull exercises to increase his load capacity.

Something we spoke about a lot at the recent workshop, very useful if you work with clients who keep coming back with the same restricted range. The instinct when mobilisation isn't holding is to do more of it, more reps, more time, more pressure into the range. But if the nervous system has decided that position isn't safe, you're not going to stretch your way past that decision. It's not a tissue problem. It's a threat response. The actual fix is building trust. External stability strategies, a hand on a wall, holding onto a bench, let the nervous system practice the range in a controlled environment. The tissue doesn't change. The range doesn't change. But the brain's risk assessment does. From there, the work is weaning off the external support so the body can generate that stability internally. This principle shows up constantly in the gym and in clinics. Restrictions that aren't responding to mobilisation aren't always a mobility issues. Sometimes the body is just waiting to feel safe enough to go there. Where are you seeing this in your clients right now? Hip and T-spine cases especially, drop them below. 👇

Hello, is here anybody from Germany, Austria or Switzerland? For exchange in German.

I stopped taking on new clients about a year ago. The mentorship grew quickly and something had to give. I've spent that time teaching movement mechanics to coaches and clinicians full time. In doing that the assessment process has got sharper than it's ever been, and I'm ready to work with individuals again. I'm looking for 3 people to work with before I open this up properly. If you train seriously and you've got something that keeps coming back despite doing all the right things, the recurring injury that physio has helped temporarily but never solved, the movement limitation quietly capping your performance, drop me a DM and tell me what you're dealing with. I'll tell you if I think it's something I can help you move past. Ash