Koichi is a 37 year old managing director in a small financial firm in New York City. He takes pride in being in shape. He runs 2-3 times per week, bikes, and plays squash regularly. It was at one of his weekly squash outings that his problem occurred. Having gone running earlier in the day, and already feeling the effects, it was in the third "match game" of squash that he overextended himself reaching for the ball. He felt a sharp pull and pain in his lower back and couldn't continue to play. The pain increased and his back stiffened throughout the rest of the day, to the point where he couldn't sleep that night. Unfortunately, this was a regular occurrence for Koichi, happening once or twice a year, with the debilitating pain usually lingering for a couple of weeks. By the next morning he had a hard time standing upright and was in so much pain, he wasn't able to go to work.
Koichi is a pretty standard case for me. Like Koichi, most people who are active and consciencious about exercising, fail to properly counter balance or counter act the effects of all the repetitive exercise that they do. In a nutshell, his body insidiously tightened up over the course of weeks, months, and even years, to the point where something had to give, and finally his muscles went into spasm.
Koichi happened to call the office on a morning I was teaching his boss to say he couldn't come in. He was in too much pain and he didn't know when he would be back in the office. What he wasn't expecting was to be out of pain by days end. I first went over his medical, therapeutic, and exercise history. Next, I gave him my diagnosis and explained to him how muscles work, and most importantly, why he was in pain. Muscles have a physiological memory. All his running without properly stretching left him vulnerable, and much tighter. Whenever you overextend a muscle beyond it's normal range, just as Koichi did, the muscle will go into spasm. Muscle spasms can be experienced as a constant dull ache or a sharp pain associated with a certain movement or, like in Koichi's case, a searing stabbing pain. I had Koichi repeat a series of simple exercises a couple times and his pain diminished with each completion. This thoughtful sequencing of postures is essential to actually getting rid of pain. This is a method, one that I have perfected over the last twenty-five years.
