What if the problem isn't getting to the bottom of it

What if the problem isn't getting to the bottom of it by someone pointing out exactly what's wrong?

What if you've known this all along?

I got a message this week from someone who's had chronic back pain for 30 years. Got into triathlon, seriously strong, sits at a desk writing software for long hours and the pain always comes back. He said: "I always ask the PT or trainer and we can never get to the bottom of it. I knew there was something I was doing causing it. We just could never figure out what."

Here's what nobody told him (and what nobody told me either before I figured it out myself): Your body is already giving you the answer.

BUT you haven't been taught to hear it.

This is what I mean practically:

Most of you only notice something is wrong when the pain arrives. But the breakdown happened much earlier, i.e. the exact moment your lower back took over from your hip, core etc. The moment your breath changed. The moment your body braced instead of moved. By the time you feel pain, the pattern has already repeated hundreds of times that day.

Speed hides everything. When you move fast - in training, walking, carrying something - your compensations are completely invisible. To you and to everyone watching. The moment you slow a movement down on purpose, suddenly you can feel exactly where your body stops doing what it should and starts covering for something that isn't working.

You have your own specific triggers: What three hours at a desk does to your SI joint specifically. What a hard training week followed by a flight does. What a stressful month does to how you move.

That's your data and it's been building for 30 years.

The flare-up never comes out of nowhere. There are always early signals - a slight stiffness, a change in how a movement feels, something that's just a bit off. Learning to catch that signal and correct it yourself before it escalates is what actually breaks the cycle.

It's a skill - the ability to read what your body is doing and why in real time, without needing anyone else to translate it for you.

Once you have it, you stop asking "what's wrong with me".

Does it make sense?

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