a complete but (relatively) brief history of my experience with pain and how I changed it for good

Hey everyone,

Sometimes I forget that not all of you have been following along since the beginning of my health and fitness teaching (I've added over 100 people to this now 600 person list in the last year), and even those of you who have been here since the beginning might not know what being in my body used to be like for me. What it was like back when visits to physical therapists, orthopedic surgeons, and chiropractors were commonplace. Back when I didn’t know what I know now, when I couldn’t do anything close to what I can do now, and before I started helping my students get out of pain-- helping them to become strong enough to live the lives they want to live.  

When I started teaching yoga in 2016, I had been riddled with pain since college, and I simply thought, as most people do, that was just the way things were. After all, my physical training began as a dancer in high school, so my identity was wrapped up in the world of martyrs for their art; those willing to put themselves through anything for a higher purpose, including sacrificing the very health and longevity of their own bodies. 

In fact, I saw pain as a mark of success—I remember, when I was training with Gelsey Kirkland in my senior year of college, walking up 2nd avenue on the phone with my mom complaining of low back pain. Having completed her Bachelor’s Degree in Dance, my mom said to me, “Well, that’s the life isn’t it? You’re a real dancer now.” Before and after classes, the ballerinas I trained with showed off their bleeding toes and swollen ankles, and did their banded physical therapy exercises with pride. Being unable to perform in the second show due to an injury, while garnering anxiety and shame, was simultaneously the mark of an accomplished dancer.

But I can't blame the outdated biomechanics peddled in the dance world on my pain completely. I also fell victim to the world of the gym rats and group fitness junkies playing monkey-see-monkey-do, getting advice from youtube videos and online program templates for $99. When I saw people leaning over a barbell picking up something heavy, I threw on some weights and did what everyone else was doing. I had excellent form, or so I thought, as most people do who trained as dancers for 10 years. Despite awareness of what a shape is supposed to look like, and even the ability to put myself into the shape I thought everyone at the gym was making, I strained my back doing my first deadlift, and was taken to my knees. Looking up at the fluorescent gym lights, I lay embarrassed, afraid something horrible had happened—had I done irreparable damage to my spine? Would I no longer be able to walk without searing pain through my back? I got into my car, drove home from the gym, and saw my parent's acupuncturist--who put me on a heating pad and stuck some needles in my quad. 

I wish I could say one back strain was enough to wake me up, but this cycle happened multiple times throughout my early athletic training: I continued to brave the gym, convinced I would build the body of my dreams if I just kept showing up, assured my anxiety would be healed by exercise (which actually really helped), and confused as to why I inevitably hurt myself every few months, for years on end. 

When I finally became a serious yogi, thinking it would solve all my problems, I was told I had “sway back” and there was nothing to be done. “Do core strengtheners,” yoga teachers would say to me, as I would opt out of backbends in yoga classes only to walk out again with inexplicable pain.

Back pain was only the start of ails in my early 20s. Nagging knee pain began riddling me at some point towards the end of my intensive ballet training. One brisk fall night as I walked through Central Park with my boyfriend, my knee buckled. He and I sat on a park bench as I was afraid to walk, and he carried me back to my apartment, which was thankfully close by. 

This was around the time I sought out the top orthopedic surgeon in NY for Broadway dancers. He diagnosed me with patella femoral syndrome and explained that if my knee was not tracking perfectly, over time, the tendons would be pulled into too great of a stretch and get taxed. He sent me to physical therapy, where I saw the top Broadway physical therapist and assumed I was close to understanding how to fix my pain. They did manual therapy, ultra sound, gave me 3 sets of 10 reps for clam shells, put me on the bike, and graduated me out of therapy a few months later. 

There was no time to educate me on why I was in pain beyond "knees need to track over the toes, stop forcing your turn out," and what game plan would ensure we didn’t just put a bandaid on the issue and hope for the best. Nobody looked at my baseline levels of strength, and they definitely didn’t teach me how to exercise in a way that would keep me pain-free.

This lack of understanding is usually a recipe to land someone right back in the doctor’s office, which is exactly what happened for me. 

A year or so after the knee pain subsided, I began to find that sitting in a car for longer than an hour would be accompanied by the insatiable desire to rip out my hip flexor and plunge it into a bucket of ice. The tightness (no—extreme pain) was enough for me to see a chiropractor no less than 3x/week for 6 months.  Chiropractic adjustments helped for the time being, but just like the physical therapy and acupuncture, they were a temporary fix: I had to keep returning to a doctor’s office to have someone else fix my body. 

The last chronic pain issue I dealt with was 6 months of shoulder pain after completing my yoga teacher certification. Somehow, vinyasa flow after vinyasa flow took a toll on my shoulder, another experience common in the yoga world, but this was where the cycle finally began to slow itself down. I started my education in strength training, learned the body beyond the aphorisms rampant in the yoga/dance/group fitness world, and my journey to find pain-free mobility and strength using the kettlebell as my primary tool had begun. 

The more I learned about my body, the more information I was armed with. The more control I had, the more I was able to repeat the same motions those old motions that caused me pain with biomechanics that made me feel better instead. The stronger I got, the more my pain faded.

Now, I can go to a ballet class and do better than I did when I was at the height of my performance career. Apparently, my body can do virtually any task better now than it could then. I can go to a yoga class and enjoy the movement without fear of lower back pain because I know how to prevent it with every movement I make. I can hike down a mountain and adjust my stride and force distribution to ensure a pain free journey home. And, I can take long car and plane rides using the tools I’ve learned to ensure that the discomfort from sitting for multiple hours is momentary at worst.

But, perhaps the greatest thing my strength and physical education have given me is independence and a growth mindset. I can take care of myself without somebody else’s hands or tools. I know that the way to continue a pain-free life that allows me to do the things I love, is to continue to train and build confidence, control, and intelligence of movement.

And finally, let me take a moment to say: I GET IT. Learning a new way is hard—especially the older you get. It’s extra difficult when you’ve been going to the gym for 30+ years; you think you’re strong, yet you’re still in pain and want to chalk it up to “getting old”—like the rest of our society wants you to do—but you know there must be a better way. 

I’m here to tell you it has nothing to do with your age, and it has nothing to do with “inevitable wear and tear.” I’m here to tell you you don’t need to accept your pain.

I’m here to teach you the fundamentals you need to retrain your brain and your movement to get yourself out of pain and back into the world of worry-free movement. 

I’m here to usher you back into a world of freedom.

-Steven