Essentially, if a symptom is surgically “cured” but the cause is never addressed, the symptom will reappear in another area. Surgery, without rehabilitation to change the flawed movement patterns rarely creates a permanent solution.

Guideline # 5: Be aware of “passive treatments”. Treatment falls into two broad categories: • Passive treatment: designed to cure the pain (the symptom) • Active treatment: designed to address and cure the cause

I am convinced that some surgeries work for no other reason than they have forced the patient to take the time to rest. Always try this approach before going ahead with an actual surgical procedure. Many of my patients have done better than the statistical outcome for surgery, by employing these techniques alone.

Back injuries are a result of putting a spine under load and then breaking healthy movement form. Maintaining proper movement patterns requires endurance. Therefore, we must always place endurance as a higher priority to strength when it comes to rehabilitating a patient with a spine condition.

No passive approach creates the patterns of movement, the spine stability, and hip mobility needed to remove the tissue stresses that cause pain. If

By discovering and engraining positive movements for your back, you will find that the pain often dissipates and then disappears entirely. This is because when we remove pain triggers and stop “picking the scab” we give our tissues a chance to rest, heal and regenerate. Simultaneously our sensors for pain are actually being desensitized. Master

Thus limb movement from limb muscles requires a stiffened torso. This principle is at the root of great athletic performance. Those who allow the spine to bend instead of taking advantage of the motion and power production in the hips will either hurt their backs or limit their performance.

Unfortunately, patients who have pharmaceutically numbed their pain often make matters worse in that they are able to continue using flawed and perturbed movement patterns. This makes a bad situation worse.

Pushing yourself to a point where you begin to experience pain is not a sign you need to drive through it, but rather that you need to stop, and build a smaller set of daily goals for yourself tomorrow. Yes, it takes patience, but good things come to those who wait.