Today we are looking at the story of BK – his life during and after the NFL, and how hip pain drastically affected his quality of life.

As personal trainers who specialize in working with people with hip pain, back pain, and shoulder pain, we get clients from all walks of life.

A lot of times we work with desk jockeys – the ubiquitous tech workers of Silicon Valley.

Sometimes we work with pro and former pro athletes. The athletes with pro experience are quite interesting because they give us an inside perspective on the inner workings of the big leagues.

Oftentimes, the average Joe believes that NFL athletes are getting the best care money can buy. Team doctors give the NFL players the best pain killers and surgeries...

In a previous article, I talked about phone and internet addiction being a major contributor to my own history of chronic pain.

I addressed the ways in which constant compulsive phone and computer usage can lead to a heightened statute of stress - which can exacerbate pain and get you stuck in a loop of chronic pain. We also discussed simple steps to loosen the hold your phone has on you, and how to eventually break your phone addiction.

In today’s article, I want to address something that comes up when you’re trying to break your phone addiction. If you follow the advice I gave in the previous article, you’ll find you have a lot of time to fill. All those hours you would normally being spending on your...

If you are an athlete with recurrent or chronic pain or hang around people with recurrent or chronic pain, you’ve probably heard of cortisone injections. They’re these wonderful injections that (when they work) take away pain. However, before you get your next shot, you might want to know that the world’s most respected medical journal just published a study that shows that cortisone shots actually HARM you more than they help you.

The study looked at a large group of randomized trials looking at recurrent and chronic tendon injuries, and what they found was about what you’d expect:

…cortisone injections did, as promised, bring fast and significant pain relief, compared with doing nothing or...

If you’re experiencing back, shoulder, or hip pain, consider cutting how much time you spend scrolling through social media on your phone or working from bed on your laptop. These modern-day habits create stress levels that impact whole-body health. Here, practical advice for relieving pain by cutting screen time.

Table of Contents

• The Root Causes of Pain
• 2 Non-Surgical Strategies for Pain Relief
• How Stress Affects the Body and Mind
• The Road to Lasting Health
• 2 Practical Steps to Cutting Out the Causes of Pain
• Adjust Your Screen Limits to Fit Your Needs
• Relieving Pain with Simple Technology Life Hacks Instead of Surgery

The Root Cause of Pain

People with back, shoulder, or hip pain often think that surgery is the...

Before you jump into surgery for your hip pain, consider how reported success rates may be skewed and how you might be able to use functional training to fix painful muscle imbalance and dysfunction.

Table of Contents

• What Is Femoral Acetabular Impingement, or FAI?
• Femoroacetabular Impingement, or FAI, Diagnosis
• FAI and Surgery
• The Science on Femoroacetabular Impingement and Hip Pain
• Reasons to be Skeptical of Hip Surgery for Fixing FAI
• So, Does Surgery for Femoroacetabular Impingement, or FAI, Really Work?
• If Surgery for Hip Impingement Doesn’t Work, How Do You Fix Hip Pain?
• Exercises You May Find Helpful for Hip Pain with an FAI Diagnosis

_{Femoroacetabular impingement, also known as FAI, can be a painful...}

If you have snapping, popping, and other cracking noises in your shoulders, you might be wondering what’s causing these sounds and what you can do to get rid of them.

People often get worried when they start experiencing clicks in their shoulders. They sometimes read stories about how the source of the clicking could be labrum tears, inflamed tendons, damaged muscles, etc.—all things that sound very serious and involved to fix.

First of all, you don't need to worry. Even babies get popping and snapping in their shoulders. As a newborn, my son had audible noises come from his shoulders - but they were not at all a sign of joint problems. And he STILL gets occasional noises!

What most people (including many doctors) don’t...

A 2018 study in the American Journal of Sports Medicine claims that surgery for hip impingement is VERY successful. It says that arthroscopic hip surgery for femoroacetabular impingement reliably produces excellent results for patients. They claim it helps the overwhelming majority of hip pain patients return to sports quickly.

Other studies about FAI surgery don’t show these utopian results – like this one or this one. We’ve also seen a recent study on hip impingement surgery versus physical therapy. Surgery led to patient disappointment in that study too.

This new hip impingement study, Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Outcomes After Hip Arthroscopy in Femoroacetabular Impingement, makes a bold claim.

It claims...

This post is written by Naushad Godrej, a friend of Upright Health.

Do you ever feel a pinch in your hip when you sit down for an extended period of time? Is it difficult for you to lift your knee towards your chest past 90 degrees? Do you ever feel clicking in your hip when you bend down for a squat? If any of these painful feelings resonate with you, there’s a chance you may have been told you have femoroacetabular impingement (FAI).

That's medical lingo for hip impingement.

An overview of your hips

The hip is a ball and socket joint that should allow your leg to move in all planes of motion: forwards and backwards, side to side, externally and internally. As you may know from personal experience, some of these movements can...

You’ve been told you have a rotator cuff tear, and you are scared that your shoulder is going to hurt forever. You’re afraid you’ve done damage that you’re never going to come back from. Maybe you’re wondering if there’s a way you can avoid getting surgery?

Let’s look at the ins and outs of rotator cuff tears so you understand what you’re dealing with.

We’re going to answer 3 major questions about rotator cuff tears:

1) What are rotator cuff tears?

2) Do rotator cuff tears cause pain?

3) Does surgery for rotator cuff tears get you back to doing things you love?

Along the way, we’ll address some other related questions as well, and figure out the best way for YOU to...

You’ve been spinning your wheels in chronic pain. Maybe you’ve got shoulder pain. Back pain. Hip pain. Knee pain. Whatever it is, you’ve been in pain for a while.

You keep thinking “I’VE GOT TO GET OUT OF PAIN.”

Every day, you’re obsessing about the pain you’re in and how to get away from it.

You’re in a hole. You’re in a hole of AVOIDANCE. An Avoidance Hole. Or an A Hole for short.

Nobody wants to be stuck in an A hole. It’s miserable. It smells bad. And it’s totally unproductive.

All your obsessing about avoiding pain doesn’t solve anything. You rest more. You use pain patches. You use pain pills. You avoid things you used to love. 

And still your body...