Even though athletes are well-conditioned and appear to be healthy, they hold their lifetime traumas in their craniosacral fascial systems like everyone else.
A 235-pound twenty-six-year-old man with bulging muscles presented with back, neck, and head pain. He also had plantar fasciitis in both feet.
He had his tonsils and wisdom teeth removed and braces as a teenager. The big red flag was his umbilical cord wrapped at birth.
During his last two years of high school and his four years of college, he was a competitive rower. He said with pride that his college boat was ranked twelfth in the nation.
He mentioned that he had a specific seat in the boat and repeated the same rowing motion for his entire career. That sounded to me like the ultimate repetitive strain injury.
Not surprisingly, he went into this strain during therapy. When a red ring around his throat for the umbilical cord wrapped appeared, I knew that his body was dealing with many layers of trauma at once.
He also competed in cross country in high school, which was probably the root cause of his plantar fasciitis. When I worked that area, the fascial strain released well.
At 14, he took a bad fall on his pelvis while skateboarding. I did not see any evidence of that restriction during the visit but expect it will come out in the deeper layers of his onion. In addition, I will be dealing with all the traumas that he had forgotten in his life but the fascial web was holding.
The ideal situation would have been the work at birth for his wrapped cord and therapy, as needed, after the sports injuries. I also cautioned him not to strain himself at the gym during his workouts.
Athletes may look great on the outside but may have screaming craniosacral fascial systems on the inside. Gillespie Approach Training is a must for healthcare providers.
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