Pain Free

“Pete Egoscue has totally changed my life. Never have I experienced such complete pain relief as I have following the Egoscue Method.”—Jack Nicklaus

“Pain Free is based on a very sound understanding of human physiology. It shows how we can break the circuit of pain and naturally heal one of the most significant disabilities of our time.”—Deepak Chopra

“The ideas that Pete Egoscue brings to the world of nonoperative orthopedics are thoughtful, insightful, a bit controversial but undeniably USEFUL! I’ve used many of Pete’s E-cises in caring for my patients over the years. Buy this book—sooner or later you’re going to need it!”—Scott V. Haig, M.D., assistant clinical professor of orthopedic surgery, Columbia University

Autorentext

Pete Egoscue, an anatomical physiologist, founded The Egoscue Method in 1978. His exercise therapy program is acclaimed worldwide for treating musculoskeletal pain attributed to workplace and sports injuries, accidents, aging, and other conditions. Pete has worked with some of the biggest names in sports, business, and politics. The Egoscue Method has dozens of clinics across the United States and several international facilities, and helps tens of thousands of people every year to live pain free.

Klappentext

"Now fully updated and revised throughout, Pete Egoscue's breakthrough system for eliminating chronic pain without drugs, surgery, or expensive physical therapy. Starting today, you don't have to live in pain. That is Pete Egoscue's revolutionary message. Developed through his work as a physiologist and sports injury consultant, Pain Free offers a revolutionary regimen of quick stretches and strength-building exercises that will cure chronic pain, and do it naturally. With an astounding 95 percent success rate, Egoscue has already shown hundreds of thousands of individuals, corporations, schools, and championship sports teams how to eliminate pain without investing in expensive ergonomic devices or resorting to surgery or drug therapies"--

Zusammenfassung
Live pain free! Now fully updated and revised throughout, this million-copy bestseller will help you feel and move better.

“This book is extraordinary, and I am thrilled to recommend it to anyone who’s interested in dramatically increasing the quality of their physical health.”—Tony Robbins

With a new foreword by John Lynch, Hall of Fame NFL safety and general manager of the San Francisco 49ers

Can gentle exercise help with chronic pain? Yes! That is the revolutionary message of the Egoscue Method, a breakthrough system for eliminating musculoskeletal pain without drugs, surgery, or expensive physical therapy. Developed by Pete Egoscue, an internationally renowned physiologist and injury consultant to some of the most successful performers in all walks of life, the Egoscue Method has helped millions of people with an astounding success rate of over 90 percent. The Method uses a series of gentle exercises and carefully constructed stretches called “E-cises” to teach the body to return to its natural, pain-free state. Inside, you’ll find detailed photographs and step-by-step instructions for dozens of E-cises specifically designed to provide quick and lasting relief of

• joint discomfort, including back and neck pain; achy knees, hips, and shoulders; arthritis; and injured ankles.
• muscle and soft-tissue problems, including rotator cuff injuries, tendinitis, and common foot ailments.
• shooting pains, including sciatica and carpal tunnel syndrome.
• and much more, including headaches, vertigo, and fatigue.

With this book, you’re on your way to regaining the greatest gift of all: a pain-free body!

Leseprobe
INTRODUCTION

This is a book about our bodies—yours and mine. We are different in height, weight, and possibly gender. But our common possession is the body's inner power to heal itself and to be pain free. By choosing those two words as my title, I am celebrating our mutual good fortune. I am also making a promise that I know you can keep.

Being pain free takes personal effort and commitment. It doesn't come from a pill bottle, a surgeon's knife, a brace, or in specially designed mattresses, chairs, and tools. The thousands of men and women who in the course of a typical year visit my Egoscue Method Clinic in San Diego, California, know it, or they soon find out, and I watch them transform their lives as they rediscover the joy and health that had seemed lost forever. While each client is dedicated to stopping chronic pain in one form or another, they are all taking the easy way out. The easiest, really.

The following pages show you the way. It does not involve high-tech medicine or elaborate physical therapy routines. You won't need to buy special equipment or consult cadres of experts. In the first three chapters, I review how the human body is designed to maintain its own health throughout a long lifetime. Episodes of pain are aberrations that can be easily treated if the body is permitted to do its work. Unfortunately, many of us don't understand even the most basic features of this magnificent "machine."

Following this overview are eight chapters, each dealing with a specific chronic pain condition. You have probably already looked at the table of contents. I reverse the usual order and go from foot to head: sore feet, ankles, knees, hips, back, shoulders, elbows, wrists, hands, neck, and head. The chronic pain chapters are set up to give you a quick and thorough briefing on what's happening in that part of the body when it hurts. After each briefing, I offer a series of exercises designed to alleviate the causes of pain in that body part. My friends at the clinic have nicknamed them E-cises, for "Egoscuecises," to tease me for my near obsession with fine-tuning them as therapeutic tools. What started as an inside joke has taken root, and that's what I call them in this book. The E-cises are arranged in menus, and are easy to do and extremely effective. To guide you along, I provide detailed instructions and many photos.

Next comes a chapter on common chronic pain problems relating to popular sports and recreational activities, and finally a concluding chapter that, among other things, offers an overall conditioning menu of E-cises for your use once your chronic pain symptoms abate.

A Quick Guide to Using Pain Free

An author probably should not presume to tell a reader how to read a book, but I will risk it anyway in the interest of making this information as accessible as possible. My guess is that you are in pain or have been in pain recently. Take the time to read the first three chapters, which give you valuable background knowledge. I'll explain how a serious deficiency of "design motion" is causing your chronic pain symptoms and how easy it is for you to remedy the situation. Then quickly flip through the rest of the chapters to get a look at the boxes and breakouts that present key concepts in capsule form. Finally, turn to the chapter that focuses on your specific condition. My hope is that you'll eventually read the book straight through, but I realize that stopping the pain may be paramount in your mind. If I had to choose one additional must-read chapter, it would be chapter 7, which deals with hips. The condition of our hips plays a central role in combating chronic pain throughout the body.

I'll take one more unusual liberty as an author by making this statement: Pain Free won't do you much good if you just read it. Information is fine, but action is far better. When practiced both in the clinic and at home, the E-cises in this book yield a ninety-five percent success rate. Yet the Egoscue Method c…