Many, many bodily joints and tissues need to function well to be able to fully bend forward. Poor hamstrings, though … they always get blamed!

To regain forward bending ability, I hardly ever loosen patients’ hamstrings. However, say a patient did simply need looser hamstrings - then clinical care is hardly needed. (Stretching is not rocket science!) With consistent home stretching, hamstring length better consistently improve.

In almost all cases, forward bending is limited because lumbar structures are moving improperly. Usually it’s that the joints themselves are misaligned. In other cases, compressed/adhered/trapped nerves create nerve tension that limits this movement (with or without contemporary joint malalignment).

Forward bending (lumbar flexion) is usually restored once we get the patients’ lumbar structures moving properly again. Importantly, using forward bending to achieve this is beneficial in only a small group of patients. More commonly I utilize lumbar extension or sidegliding.
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So why do people say they “feel it” in their hamstrings? It’s either that they’re actually feeling the sciatic nerve(s) pull or that, in attempting to bend further, their body eeeks out more motion in the only structures it can – muscles and tendons – so they “feel it” there. Expert mechanical clinicians know better. --Laura

When discussing athletic performance, we think of coaches, strength and conditioning specialists, trainers, and so on, but my role comprises the foundation. Power, balance, and mobility are certainly trainable, but if your body is not fully normal to begin with, training will only get you so far. If performance prowess is your goal, you need normal nerve conduction, nerve extensibility, strength, mobility, biomechanics, etc. first. (Having no symptoms doesn’t mean everything is functioning normally.)

Consider jumping. If there’s even a slight derangement (painful or not) in the lumbosacral spine, the electricity supplying necessary muscles can be impeded. Tiny malalignments in the foot, ankle, knee, hip, or spine joints can affect strength, mobility, balance, and movement patterns with jumping. Abnormalities with muscles or tendons themselves (rare) will also impact jumping.
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My expertise is in ensuring people have normal physiology before they go train to make it exceptional. (There are, of course, some allowances.) Perhaps most importantly, I teach people how to self-assess and self-treat so they can always perform with optimized physiology. It takes only minutes. I believe that many “off” days are due to minor, transient joint malalignments - which can easily be self-detected and corrected if you learn how. --Laura

I gravitated to the McKenzie method because it makes sense - and works. That is why most patients require many fewer visits than with other conservative care approaches, including "traditional" physical therapy. The McKenzie method is predicated on the simple fact that most orthopedic problems are mechanical and therefore can be resolved with a few specific movements (done repeatedly).  I cringe when I read most of the orthopedic information out there, including the academic information I learned during my physical therapy doctoral program.  It really is no wonder back pain is the number one disability worldwide and there are so many people in pain in the US (despite the wide variety of conservative and invasive treatments available). Plain and simple, I look at the body very differently than most clinicians - and treat differently, too. Nearly all of my patients come to me after having tried other interventions and with diagnoses that I frankly find incorrect. My passion for this extends beyond my office; my goal is to become a faculty member with the McKenzie Institute one day so that I may spread this reliable assessment and treatment approach to as many clinicians - and patients - as possible. --Laura