New Study Compares Arthroscopic Surgery for FAI to Conservative Treatment

In a recent study, researchers compared the effectiveness of arthroscopic surgery for FAI versus conservative treatment (non-surgical methods and physical therapy).[1]  The researchers concluded that surgery for FAI was more effective than non-surgical treatment.

Other studies have shown that physical therapy and surgery for FAI are equally disappointing. So like any study, sometimes you have to lift the hood and look at the fine print to see what's really going on. 

An analysis of the data actually shows us that neither FAI treatment was that good.  Arthroscopic surgery for FAI showed weak results. The nonsurgical treatment for FAI showed weak...

Are you considering a hip injection to test for femoroacetabular impingement (FAI)? Has a hip surgeon told you he can use a hip injection to diagnose FAI or a labral tear with certainty? In this article, you'll discover the truth about hip injections for FAI (and related hip joint pathology like labral tears).

Why get a hip injection for FAI?

The current medical approach to the diagnosis of FAI relies on several tests. One test is anesthetic injection into your hip joint.

Hip surgeons believe that if the injection relieves pain, you have a problem inside your hip joint (like a labral tear and/or FAI). Surgeons suggest that a successful injection indicates surgery is likely to be helpful. (source).

In other words, if an...

When it comes to lower back, hip, and knee pain, we can get caught in a cycle of beliefs that can make our pain worse. Here's how functional training may be the way to break the cycle. 

Table of Contents

• Theories About Chronic Pain and How to Treat It
• Why Rest Isn’t Always the Best Solution
• Your Perception of Pain Can Make It Worse
• Working Toward a Pain-Free, Empowered Solution to Functional Movement
• Why Functional Training Works to Treat Pain
• My Journey with Pain and Functional Training

When you’re suffering from chronic pain, you may search for the meaning behind your suffering, asking yourself What's wrong with me? Or What did I do to deserve this?

However, the meanings we ascribe to our chronic pain...

Functional training may help relieve thoracic outlet syndrome symptoms, including cold and numb hands. Learn the risks of TOS surgery, along with less-risky thoracic outlet syndrome treatments, including simple movement solutions that address muscle dysfunction.

Table of Contents

What is Thoracic Outlet Syndrome?
Should You Get Surgery for Thoracic Outlet Syndrome?
What are the Complication Rates with Thoracic Outlet Surgery?
What are the Success Rates of Thoracic Outlet Syndrome?
What will my Quality of Life be Post Thoracic Outlet Syndrome Surgery?
What are the Alternatives to Thoracic Outlet Syndrome Surgery?
How I Fixed my Thoracic Outlet Syndrome Symptoms
Functional Training Exercises for Relieving Symptoms of Thoracic Outlet...

You head to the doctor because you keep having this nagging shoulder pain every time you move your arm. It hurts to scratch your back and grab plates out of the cabinet. It’s getting harder to wash your hair and put your shirt on every morning.

Your doctor does some tests and diagnoses you with shoulder impingement syndrome - or SIS for short.

Now you want to learn what this means for you because you want to get back to living your life without shoulder pain. You want to reach to the top shelf, play tennis, lift weights, and play with your kids without shoulder pain.

You may have tried physical therapy for a while and gotten no relief, and now you may be considering surgery to cut down bones that your doctor says are shaped...

If you have hip pain, and you've been told you have femoroacetabular impingement (FAI), you may have had a series of movement tests (called "special tests" in medical jargon) done to confirm your diagnosis.

If you have hip pain and are wondering if there are good tests for femoroacetabular impingement that will tell you if you have FAI, you may found a number of common tests that are believed to be reliable.

In either case, this article is going to cover something medical literature on FAI overlooks: the tests for hip pain causes are wildly unreliable.

What are special tests for femoroacetabular impingement?

A special test for FAI is simply a movement that doctors believe demonstrates that hip bone shape is responsible for your...

If you suspect you have hip pain from femoroacetabular impingement, you may be considering a hip injection. 

I've been doing a lot of research on FAI as part of my duties as one of the co-creators of the FAI Fix. In a recent YouTube comment, an orthopedic physician angrily pointed out that hip joint injections supposedly identify whether hip pain is caused by problems IN the hip joint, like FAI. 

I found his comment interesting, so I did more research on hip injections for FAI. I am going to share some of the results of this research here.

Hip injections for FAI - is the pain caused by what's in the joint?

I started going through the available medical literature on femoroacetabular impingement...

Back pain is one of the most common complaints in the modern world. It’s irritating. It’s debilitating. I know from personal experience. But with hindsight, I am grateful I never got an MRI for back pain.

In this article, I’ll explain why an MRI for back pain may not be worth your time, money, or energy.

It’s not just doctors who see lots of back pain

We’re in a unique position as personal trainers because a lot of our clients get an MRI for back pain (as well as x-rays) before coming to see us for their training (and after rest and perfunctory physical therapy doesn’t do much to help).

We have seen a ton of clients with back pain get better with smart training and gradual relearning of better...

If you've never heard of the medical diagnosis "miserable malalignment" it's because it hasn't been discussed much until recently. The first time I heard about it was from a client. She was a physical therapist who had been diagnosed with the condition.

The right leg (left in the picture) has relatively internally rotated femur and externally rotated tibia.

Why is it en vogue now? Because a growing number of surgeons are starting to talk about the surgery as a surefire cure for knee, leg, and hip pain. 

But as we've seen with spine, hip, knee, and shoulder surgeries, the medical industry has a long history of overselling the benefits of new orthopedic surgeries.

So in this article, we're going to take a closer non-medical look...

In this article we're going to talk about what to do in case you have a leg length discrepancy. You may have been told by a chiropractor or a massage therapist that one of your legs is longer than the other. Maybe you've noticed one leg seems to reach out further than the other when you walk and so you suspect a difference.

What should you do about it? How do you think about a leg length discrepancy in a way that will help you make as much progress with your body on your own?  

Why you might care about leg length

If your legs are of different lengths, you'll be literally off-kilter. When standing, one half of your pelvis will sit higher than the other and will likely be tilted anteriorly or posteriorly...