I love my job as a sports therapist, and the human body fascinates me. Over the twenty years I have been dealing with client’s muscles and pain, the one constant is, so many injuries and problems could have been avoided. Problems that, if recognised and dealt with earlier, would not have occurred or become so severe. The frustrating thing is that it is easy to do. All that is needed is taking the time to listen to your body. The problem is that we just don’t. Life is too fast and we don’t take the time to listen to what our bodies are trying to tell us. We ignore the niggles and aches, which cause imbalances in our muscles, which lead to pain and then inevitably, chronic pain. 

It is frustratingly for me, simple avoid such problems and make sure that your life is as pain freeas possible. Why should you miss out on so many wonderful experiences when maybe, with a little effort and dedication, you could start to live like you remember? It just takes consistency, time and patience.

There is no better time than now to get started and build a better you. Let me show you how to begin.

If you don’t use them, how do you know that they don’t work?

Your body can carry a lot of issues before you realise that there is a problem. Knots, muscle fibres stuck together, tension and stiffness can all live inside you without you realising that they are there. Ever had that pain in your shoulder or neck that just came out of nowhere and was agony for a few weeks? That would have been there building up, growing for months, the muscles getting tighter and tighter until, ahh, pain. It didn’t need to get to this, and you could have prevented it altogether. All you needed to do was to be more in touch with your body, recognise the symptoms and fix it. It’s easy to do when you know how, but like everything in life, knowledge is power.

Over time, your body develops habits. To see this in action just look at the way you drive, the way you sit in your favourite chair or the way you stand when you are talking to someone. These habits become repeated actions. You do them again and again, and eventually the muscles shorten and tighten. This tightness puts extra stress on your ligaments and joints, which in time can lead to other problems such as wear and tear and arthritis.

If you can keep your muscles happy, and minimise their stress, this will help in keeping your bones and joints happy and in their correct position, reducing unnatural wear and tear because everything is sitting where it’s meant to be.

Before we start working out what’s wrong, let’s do a little test.

▸ I want you to stand tall. By this I mean stand up straight. Try to relax your shoulders, and put them where you think they should be.

▸ Take in slow, controlled, regular breaths, in through your nose and out through your mouth.

▸ Now stand with your feet hip distance apart. Look straight ahead and walk on the spot. Don’t lift your feet too high. Try to make the action feel as natural as possible.

▸ Do this for one minute continuously and FEEL. Try to take your mind into your body and feel what is going on.

If I were with you, I would be able to see what is going on in your body and help you understand it, but you will have to do the observation yourself. I have found that when people concentrate too hard, they stop breathing, so make sure you breathe, then consider these questions and note anything else you feel.

▸ What are your arms doing? Are they motionless or moving?

▸ Where do you feel tight?

▸ Are you managing to stay on one spot?

▸ Is there pain in your back?

▸ Is one leg working better than the other?

There are so many things you could look out for, but for now just walk. Walk on the spot for a minute and feel.

Now the minute is over, take a moment to think. Listen to your body. What is it telling you? What was the most important thing you took from that exercise? Did everything feel ok or was there something niggling that perhaps shouldn’t have been? You can learn an awful amount from just one minute of simple exercise, listening to your body.

When I take on a new client, the first thing they often say to me after a session is, “Well, that never used to hurt before”. Well, of course it didn’t, because they never used it and didn’t know there was as problem. Our lives are so busy that we become detached from ourselves. We stop listening and stop feeling. It’s now time to reverse that and take back control. Time to stop ignoring the problems and do something about them. You can achieve with just a few minutes of light, daily exercise. Stretching the muscles that feel tight and strengthening the muscles that feel weak. So, give it a go, by spending some time to listen to your body and give it what it needs to become niggle free.

Extract taken from A Better You in Later Life, by John Molyneux