Turning in bed can be painful or challenging for people with arthritis in their low back or hips, but it doesn't have to be. If you use the correct body mechanics, you can take the stress off your joints and easily get in and out of bed. When you learn to roll rather than lift your body you let...

Your hips and low back are the foundation for movement. Their position will determine what muscles you use and how much stress you put on your joints while standing, walking, bending, and most other daily activities. Very often the alignment between the hips and the low back becomes offset. Tight...

Getting up and down from the floor can be quite challenging when you have arthritis. Previous videos have shown how you can do this on your own. If you are looking for an even easier way you only need a step stool for easy and pain-free trips from the ground. 

Getting up and down is a lot...

How good are you at activating your butt muscles (gluteal muscles)? When people think about muscles they most often think in terms of how strong or weak they are. In many cases improving your ability to control your muscles is more important than making them stronger. Your ability to activate...

Your ability to control a pelvic tilt will inform how you stand, sit, walk, climb stairs, and even sleep. The pelvis is the connection between the spine and the legs and as such, its position will determine how well you can engage the muscles in your thighs, hips, and trunk. When you lose the...

The bridge is one of the most common exercises performed by people with arthritis, and for good reason. Bridging exercises are an effective way to improve strength in the gluteal (butt muscles) and flexibility in the hips and are easy on the joints. However, when I watch people perform bridges...

Getting up and down from the floor is an important life skill, but can be difficult or even dangerous for many people. It requires strong leg muscles, good mobility in your ankles, knees, hips, and back, and good balance. People who struggle to get on and off the ground often make the activity...

Throughout the night, immobility and dehydration deplete the synovial fluid in your joints making them feel stiff and uncomfortable. Synovial fluid is a thick liquid located in your joints cushioning the ends of your bones and reducing friction when you move. Arthritic joints are very...

Putting on shoes and socks can be pretty difficult if you have arthritis in the hips, knees, or low back. It requires flexibility in your joints and a certain amount of coordination of your muscles to easily cross one leg over the other. This exercise teaches you how to maximize your ability to...

Your ability to walk has a large impact on how you live your daily life. It can influence your independence, social interactions, comfort level, and even your mood. Over time you may have noticed your gait got a little slower, smaller, or less stable. We tend to limit movement when we lose...

Having arthritis does not mean you have to give up on playing sports. For those who are able, continuing to engage in athletics improves strength, coordination, flexibility, and fun. The recipe for reducing arthritis pain. So much of how you feel will depend on how you move so you have to listen...

Managing stairs is one of the most physically demanding things we go through in our day-to-day lives and a frequent cause of pain for people with arthritis in the legs or low back. You need a different type of strength and control for going down stairs than going up. That is why some people feel...

Stairs are a common challenge for people with joint pain. Some try going up leading with their "better" leg, or going up sideways, or just avoiding them altogether. All of these strategies focus on avoiding pain rather than improving technique. In this video, I demonstrate how to use your...

Your posture plays a large role in how you use your muscles and how much strain you put through your joints. It is common for the shoulders and the hips to become offset from one another in what is known as a lateral shift. This shift happens slowly over time and most people do not even realize...

You could be getting out of chairs more easily and with less pain. With a few changes to your form, you can get up more efficiently and with less pain and strain in your knees, hips, and low back. You will identify where your center of gravity is and how to balance over your feet when rising....

The Sacro Iliac (SI) joint is the connection between your legs and your spine. If you can feel the 2 bony prominences at either side of the lowest part of your back, that is where the SI lives. Its job is to allow forces to flow seamlessly from your legs to your body for stability while standing...

Squatting is an essential movement for comfortable and healthy daily activities. Every time you get up from a chair or take the stairs you are performing some variation of a squat. Learning the fundamental principles of squatting will help you increase strength in your legs, stabilize your core,...

For some rolling in bed can be a challenging or even painful activity. I often watch patients struggle needlessly while attempting to roll on my treatment table. By following a few key principles nearly everyone can roll with less effort and little to no pain. In this video, you will see how to...

Tight hip flexors are a common cause of pain in the knees, hips, or low back. They limit upright standing posture and make it more difficult to initiate abdominal and gluteal muscles needed for healthy movement. In this session you will learn how to release your tight hip flexors, but not by...

How you use your hips and low back will determine how much stress you put on the joints of your entire leg. In this movement improvement series, you will learn how to comfortably improve hip mobility by releasing tense muscles in your low back and groin and engaging underutilized muscles in your...

Reduce arthritis pain by practicing moving your hips into rotation. Explore the relationship between low back and pelvis movement and freedom in the hips. You will learn to release chronically tight muscles in the inner thighs to allow for greater freedom of movement. By the end of this session,...

Gravity is constantly pushing down on your body. You can either absorb those downward forces, compressing your joints, and straining your tissues, or you can resist that downward force with longer, stronger legs. In this movement improvement session, you will learn how to lengthen your legs...

In our last session, we explored standing taller by changing the position of your spine. Today we will build on that by examining how you use your hips when you are standing. Most people who lose height from the hips have no idea that it is happening.

In this session, we will perform a diagnostic...

In this session, you will learn a single movement progression that will improve hip mobility and muscle engagement of both hips at the same time. It is simple and efficient but still fairly challenging.   

I use this routine frequently with many of my patients with low back, hip, or...