Hi Lucinda, why not pop over to the discussion forum for a bit of moral support and hopefully some practical help to get you out of pain and more mobile. Just follow the ‘Forum’ menu link at the top of the page.

You certainly aren’t alone and there are steps you can take to improve your situation. Best of luck!

Susan

If all goes well it’ll be ready tonight. I’m planning to send the link to a few people just to get their feedback. All being well I’ll then send out a newsletter to let everyone know. As soon as it’s live I’ll drop you a line.

Many of the exercises in the book I was given by physios years ago. They didn’t work. It’s the combination that matters – covering all the bases and being aware that you are currently incapable of doing them correctly. You really need to keep thinking about it and keep working at ALL of the problem areas. It’s not so much about the exercises as it is about developing enough awareness and control to override what your brain/nervous system wants to do.

I agree – having people to discuss it with is SO important. I’ll manage the admin somehow!

I’ll be in touch soon.

I think a forum would be very useful. At the least, it might help centralise comments that are at the moment scattered throughout cyberspace. I keep coming across threads you are involved in in diverse locations. There are a lot of doubters out there! I I have to admit, when I first bought your book, I leafed through it and dismissed the exercises as too easy by half. I thought, I can already do these and they make no difference. Six months later I picked the book up again and I am finding the reality is quite different. The difficulty of rebalancing and strengthening a core that is so subtly out of sync on such a deep level it is only intermittently apparent is fearsomely demanding. It would be wonderful to be able to discuss the intricacies of this with others.

The problem is, the more active any forum is, the more admin work is involved.

All the best,

Nicholas

Thanks again for the reply!
I just wanted to make a post for others who might be reading.

I have been doing the book for two months exactly. I did skip some and do my favorites during the second month, but now I will be going back and doing the entire plan to make sure I get it all in there.

Anyways… I am starting to feel amazing! My bones still grind, but less. I can stand on the bad leg and put pants on without leaning or crunching the bones. I am slow at doing this but progress! How great it feels.

Also, I haven’t walked for more than 20 minutes without limping and pain and a high heart because I am over worked and tired. I think the last time I walked for over 2 hours was a couple years ago. But now, I walked for 4 hours this weekend! I was a little stiff but nothing too bad. And all thanks to the book.

Can’t wait to see how far I come by the end of the year!
*crossing my fingers that my hips will level out and the tilt rotation goes away soon!*

This is a tricky question to answer as everyone is different. The best guidance would be to re-read the section of the book on Exercise and OA.

In short, the fitter and stronger you can get the better. Throughout my decade long battle I tried all approaches – training hard in sports, doing nothing but rehab and a bit of both. Without a doubt, best results were achieved when I got the balance between the two just right.

Try some regular crunches and other core work. Just make sure you try to use the correct muscles and that you dedicate some time each week to focusing 100% on correct muscle activation.

I always made great progress doing strength training (weight lifting) whilst trying to correct my imbalance. Don’t get too hung up about never moving until you can move correctly. As long as you keep trying to build awareness things should slowly but surely move in the right direction. The Exercise section in the book will help you to understand how to achieve the right balance.

Also curious on more core strengthening. I want to move past the book and do more regular exercises but not sure if I should at the moment. I think the plan targets the proper areas that I would miss out on doing regular crunches, etc.

That’s not good that your leg is shorter! However, it’s certainly the case that when you’re working on the tight, weak muscles that they can get irritated and tighten up more (temporarily). A person that’s normal and healthy will get tight and sore after unaccustomed exercise (called DOMS – Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness). It stands to reason that when you have dysfunction you’ll be more prone to DOMS. If the muscles tighten your sacrum will pull further out of position and your short leg will get shorter. Provided it’s a temporary set back it’s nothing to worry about.

Stretching is *sort of* the last thing to think about. That’s what I said in the book and mostly I stand by that. However, one of the main culprits for me (and I suspect for most) is a weak, tight piriformis on the symptomatic side. The piriformis can freak out badly when you stretch or strengthen it so I got into the habit of leaving it well alone. I managed to get myself fixed without ever really tackling that piriformis directly. It strengthened and stretched just through daily living – but not completely. It’s stayed a bit tight long after the OA problem is fixed. I think now that had I tackled the piriformis sooner I’d have been fixed sooner. I now believe it is likely to be a key muscle.
Looking back on how my hip problem developed I can remember that initially it was like a groin tweak – no problems with the gluteal muscles. Not too much restricted movement. As I limped about and avoided irritating the groin tweak I remember more and more soreness developing in my glutes. It eventually started to feel like broken glass. As the glute soreness increased they level of dysfunction got worse.

In retrospect I think that as I guarded the sore groin muscles the piriformis gradually atrophied, weakened and shortened.

Would things have progressed differently if I’d managed to prevent that deterioration of the priformis to happen? I think so. In the early days physios did give me exercises to strengthen / stretch the piriformis but they were too aggressive and they made things worse.

So now I’m thinking that whilst standard approaches to stretching and strengthening the piriformis might be out of the question until you reach a good state of recovery, there may well be ways to target and improve the piriformis in non-aggressive ways.

I’ll get the post written ASAP.