Looking at the way that the body moves and making modifications to relieve the pain associated with the body’s usual, but, sometimes, detrimental movement patterns can be an effective way to reduce strain on sensitive, inflamed tissues. Typically, when all of our muscles are working correctly and with the proper timing, our tissues provide pain-free movement. But when there has been an insult to the tissue, from bringing it to the ”pain threshold/micro- or macro-trauma point” through overuse or overload, a painful cascade begins. Pain with certain movements causes the brain to overlook the muscles that are causing the pain, which leads to what we call muscle inhibition, then creating movement dysfunction. Often these tissues begin to hurt from our everyday activities rather than having injured the tissue suddenly. Low force over either frequent repetition, like if your rotator cuff muscles in your shoulder stop engaging when you raise up your arm, or low force over a long period of time, like holding poor posture while sitting all day. If it hurts to do a movement or hold a poor posture for a long time, the brain says, “Don't do it”. But us humans aren't always good listeners to what the brain is telling us and then we worsen the situation, creating more injury, by moving through the pain or maintaining that cruddy posture for hours. PTs trained in Movement Impairment Syndromes can sometimes interrupt the pain cycle by simply changing up the way you move. Sometimes the tissues are more involved and need myofascial release of some sort or active stretching in order to produce pain-free movement of an area.