09/04/2025
Join Dr. Anna Hayes at the SOBI Virtual 2025 Conference:
In the OB training process, we learn phase 4 techniques to treat various joints within the body before further developing these skills with phase 5 and phase 6 techniques. When I started in practice though, I had little idea about how to comprehensively treat the symptoms that people were bringing to me, be that lower back pain, neck pain, shoulder pain, stress and anxiety, or trauma.
Over time, it became increasingly apparent to me that many of the joints that we had learnt to treat as an individual item were connected, as were the physical and mental aspects of these symptom-related issues.
A knowledge of these connections is vital for the long-term success of treating the symptoms that the client brings to us. I would like to present some of these connections that are relevant for treating common symptoms that we deal with in our daily practice as Ortho-Bionomy practitioners, particularly that of lower back pain.
Lower back pain is probably the most commonly occurring problem that many of us see in our practices. The temptation here is to directly treat the spine, as we learnt in our training; to test for painful points and then treat them accordingly. However, I soon discovered that this often meant that the client would return with recurring pain.
I have a Ph.D. in Biomechanics and after some research, it made sense to me that a misaligned pelvis was possibly the initial cause of lower back pain. In essence it is a mechanical problem. Think of the bones, the skeleton. When the pelvis is misaligned, the vertebrae, the spine, will not be stacked in a straight line but will be twisted causing back pain.
This also means that the shoulders will be misaligned, which means that the neck vertebrae will not be straight either, as they will try to reorganize themselves to keep the eyes horizontal. Neck, shoulder and back pain can be the result.
Looking down the body from the pelvis; if the pelvis is misaligned, is higher on one side than the other, then one leg will be longer than the other, creating unnatural loading of the hip, knee, ankle and foot joints, and possible pain in these joints too. This is the reason why I almost always start a session by treating the pelvis, the whole pelvis ring: the ilium, the sacrum and the p***c bones.
When the pelvis ring is stable, the rest of the body has a chance to realign itself. And if not, then we can help by looking at the shoulders, the jaw, the back and neck vertebrae, the hip, the knee and the foot alignment. The pelvis also holds and protects our central energy source. That means that when the pelvic region is under tension, our energy cannot flow freely. People often report after or during the treatment of the pelvis that "something" flows in one leg or the other, or both. This is often accompanied by a feeling of relaxation within the whole body.
After 13 years of practice, I have had an amazing success rate using pelvic realignment to treat lower back pain, often after only a one-hour treatment with a second hour booked just as a follow-up. And I very often don't see these clients again. This is just one example of a more holistic approach to treating symptoms of pain and dis-ease that could be reflected more in the practitioner training program. This would benefit practitioners and patients alike.
View the full details of the conference and register here. https://ortho-bionomy.org/aws/SOBI/pt/sp/conference_new
Interested in becoming a sponsor for the conference and getting your practice, classes, training, or product seen? Sponsorships are now open as well! Learn more here. https://ortho-bionomy.org/aws/SOBI/pt/sp/conference_new
We look forward to seeing you at the conference and sharing in the exploration of Ortho-Bionomy together.
