Beyond the Adjustment: The Different Ways We Help You Move & Feel Better

Why your treatment may include exercises, soft-tissue work, movement changes, and a little homework

When something hurts, it’s natural to focus on the place that hurts.

“My neck hurts.”

“My knee hurts when I run.”

“My back always tightens up after work.”

And, of course, helping you feel better is important. But sometimes the painful area is only part of the story.

At Align, our goal is to look beyond the immediate symptom and ask another important question:

Why is this happening—and what can we do to help keep it from coming back?

That’s why your care may include more than one approach. Depending on what we find, treatment might incorporate hands-on care, corrective exercises, soft-tissue techniques, changes to the way you move, and practical things you can do at home.

Here are a few of the tools we may use—and why.

1. Corrective Exercise: Teaching Your Body to Move Better

Sometimes pain develops because certain muscles aren’t doing their share of the work.

Other muscles compensate. Movement patterns change. And eventually, something starts complaining.

Corrective exercises are targeted movements designed to improve strength, mobility, stability, coordination, and movement patterns.

This isn’t necessarily about doing a hard workout.

Sometimes a very simple exercise can help activate a muscle that hasn’t been contributing effectively or teach your body a better way to perform a familiar movement.

For example, someone with recurring knee discomfort may need to work on hip or glute strength. Someone with shoulder problems may benefit from improving how the shoulder blade moves. A person with recurring low-back discomfort may need better trunk stability or hip mobility.

The benefit?

Your body can become more efficient at distributing the demands placed on it.

Rather than simply treating the area that hurts, we’re working on factors that may be contributing to the problem in the first place.

That can also be an important part of reducing the likelihood that the same issue keeps returning.

2. Soft-Tissue Techniques: Addressing the Muscles Around the Problem

Muscles and other soft tissues can become tight, sensitive, or restricted from injury, repetitive activity, prolonged positions, exercise, or compensation.

That’s where focused soft-tissue work may be helpful.

Your provider may use hands-on techniques to address areas of muscle tension and discomfort and to support better movement.

But here’s an important distinction:

We’re not necessarily working on a tight muscle simply because it’s tight.

We want to understand how that tissue fits into the larger movement pattern.

For example, if your neck constantly feels tight, we may also look at your upper back, shoulders, posture, workstation, and how much time you’re spending in one position.

The goal isn’t simply to make a muscle feel looser for an afternoon.

It’s to help improve how your body moves as a whole.

3. Activity Modification: Sometimes It’s What You Do the Other 167 Hours of the Week

This may be one of the most overlooked pieces of treatment.

We might see you for an appointment once or twice a week.

But what happens during the rest of your week?

Maybe you sit at a computer for eight hours a day.

Maybe you repeatedly lift something at work.

Maybe you’re suddenly running 20 miles a week after barely running all winter.

Maybe you mountain bike, garden, lift weights, carry a toddler on the same hip, or spend hours looking down at your phone.

None of those activities are inherently “bad.”

But repetitive movements, repetitive positions, sudden changes in activity, or inefficient mechanics can place more stress on certain tissues than they’re prepared to handle.

That’s why part of treatment may simply involve talking.

We may look at:

• How you sit or work
• How you’re performing an exercise
• Your training volume
• Ergonomic changes
• Ways to temporarily modify an aggravating activity
• Small movements or breaks that can reduce prolonged stress

Sometimes you don’t need to stop doing what you love.

You just need to change how you’re doing it—or give your body a better opportunity to tolerate it.

4. Education & Self-Care: Understanding the “Why”

This is one of the most important things we can give our patients.

Understanding.

We don’t want you leaving the clinic thinking:

“My back hurts. They worked on my back. Hopefully it stays better.”

We’d rather you understand what we think is happening, what may be contributing to it, and what you can do about it.

That might include discussing why a particular movement hurts, showing you an exercise, talking about posture or ergonomics, or helping you recognize the early warning signs that your body is becoming overloaded.

The more you understand your body, the better equipped you are to participate in your own recovery.

And ideally, you begin noticing problems before they become big enough to stop you from doing what you enjoy.

It’s Not About One Technique

There’s rarely one magical exercise, stretch, adjustment, or soft-tissue technique that solves everything.

Bodies are more complicated than that.

That’s why we may combine different approaches depending on what we find and what you’re trying to accomplish.

You might receive hands-on treatment to help with pain and mobility, corrective exercises to improve strength and stability, activity modifications to reduce unnecessary stress on irritated tissues, and self-care recommendations to help you continue making progress between visits.

Each tool has a different job.

Together, they allow us to work toward something bigger than simply getting you through today’s discomfort.

We want to help you move better, understand your body better, and get back to doing the things you enjoy—with more confidence.

If you’re dealing with an injury, recurring pain, or something that seems to improve only to keep coming back, talk with us. Sometimes the missing piece isn’t another treatment for the painful area.

It may be figuring out why it keeps happening in the first place. Schedule an appointment today.