When this client came to see me she’d been suffering with pain on one side of her upper back for over ten years.

She said the pain was always there. Sometimes it was worse, sometimes better. Every couple of months, it got so bad that it would radiate to her neck, arm, and shoulder. Her hand would tremble and she would get debilitating headaches.

You can imagine the physical and emotional impact this was having on her life.

She’d had an MRI, an x-ray, and seen doctors, consultants and other therapists, but nothing had helped.

When you look at her posture what do you notice?

Her head and shoulder are out of alignment and rounded forward.

I could see this was contributing to her pain, but only focusing on this area would not help enough.

As a posture specialist, I focus on the entire body because all the parts are connected.

With that in mind, what else do you notice in the photo?

Her hip and pelvis are leaning away from her ankle and tilting forward.

I thought this was contributing to her upper body pain. The hips and pelvis are the foundation of the spine. If they’re not working properly, the upper body will have to make up for it.

This is so important. One part of your body could be hurting because it’s compensating for another part that’s out of place. 

To solve this problem, generic exercises would not be good enough. Instead, I taught her four exercises to work on her specific issues. One for the upper body and three for the hips!

I picked ones that matched her strength levels, and that she could do at home without any equipment. I also made them short enough so she could fit them into her daily life.

We saw each other about 10 times in total. At first, we met weekly, but later we spaced out our sessions. During these follow-up sessions, I made sure she did the exercises correctly, and gave her more advanced exercises as we progressed.

Over time, her posture got better and the pain reduced. After a few months, it was completely gone!

In the photos below you can see the changes.

This improvement is not because she is trying to stand taller. That’s not what having good posture is about. Instead, her muscles keep her body aligned because of the exercises she did.

This not only gets rid of her pain, but also helps her move, breathe, look, feel and age better!

It’s not perfect, nobody is, but it was enough to end the pain and headaches she’d had for over 10 years. We were both so happy with the result and that she could go back to having a normal life without pain.

I was very proud of her. I love it when someone has a positive attitude, works hard, and achieves amazing results.