Meghan is a professional aerial artist and dancer who came to me for help with asymmetries and pain that were eluding her. She had struggled with a twist in her pelvis and pain in her lower back and hip that had bothered her for 10 years. It was impacting her ability to focus at work and it lingered into her day-to-day life. She wanted me to take a look at her posture and movements to sort out what was going on and give her exercises to unravel her asymmetries.

In her first session we discovered that her foot on the side with the back and hip pain had an unusual way of interacting with the ground. Her tripod, the locations of pressure under her foot, which ideally are under the ball of her big toe, little toe and heel, were actually under the END of her big toe! Her misplaced tripod created a change in how she managed her mass on top of that foot.

As we looked further up, the way she straightened her knee, the excess in length in her hamstrings (thanks to years of overstretching for dancing) and the twist in her pelvis all contributed to what was going on in her back and hip. We also discovered that the muscles she was using to breathe and hold her up were reinforcing the asymmetries.

First up, I taught her to get a better tripod while teaching her a better, less painful way to straighten her knee. Then we got to work teaching her hamstrings to realign her pelvis and her abdominal muscles to do her breathing, rather than her back muscles.

When she came back for her second visit she had a big shift in her low back and hip symptoms. Her tripod was moving back to where it belonged and her feet were much better at interacting with the floor. We continued to work on refining her foot and knee movements, got even more muscles to work cooperatively to realign her pelvis and got her breathing better.

By the third visit, she was nearly free of the low back and hip symptoms and was ready for a set of exercises to keep progressing and maintaining the good work we’d done together.

She’s not at 100% yet but she has all the tools she needs to pick exactly the right exercise for what she’s feeling happen in her body. If she keeps doing her exercises every day her pain will eventually retreat and she can keep herself well knowing what she needs to stay out of the troublesome pattern.

Her chiropractor actually thanked me for sorting out the connection between her foot mechanics, hip movements and breathing patterns.

I think Meghan looks pretty proud of her results, don’t you?