Egoscue Method takes a different approach to rehabilitating injuries

By: BECKY FREEMAN - Staff Writer | Monday, April 24, 2006 10:13 PM PDT ∞

Two days prior to girls soccer tryouts at Temecula Valley High School last fall, senior Stephanie Hill had been off the field for more than a month. She could barely walk without pain, and, thinking she may never play again, Hill was desperate.

That's when Temecula's newly hired girls soccer coach, Adam Skumawitz, stepped in and convinced Hill to try a treatment that worked for his own back injuries ---- The Egoscue Method. Little did Hill know that a therapy program consisting of a daily routine of stretches and light exercises would not only cure her back pain but give her a newfound future playing the sport she loves.

The story began on the first weekend of September, 2005, when Hill landed hard on her back during a club soccer game. She tried to keep playing, but the pain was too much, so Hill was forced off the field and into the doctor's office.

"After walking, sitting, anything, I had shooting pains up my back," Hill recalled. "I tried playing and I was in tears. I was crying because it hurt so bad."

Hill was diagnosed by her doctor with a tilted sacrum (in the lower back region) and had a mild case of scoliosis to go along with it. But the doctor's words and tri-weekly adjustments from a chiropractor did nothing to help. The week prior to tryouts, Skumawitz persuaded Hill to try The Egoscue (pronounced e-GOSS-que) Method.

"At first, I thought I would just go to the doctor and he would fix it. But it wasn't helping, so I thought, 'Why not try this out-' ---- I would have tried anything that would work," Hill said. "I wasn't sure about it, and I didn't think these little stretches were going to cure me, but after the first time, I felt better.

"It started feeling better and better every day, and within one week I could play with no pain. I told (Skumawitz), 'You work miracles ---- this is amazing.' I think he was in shock too, but it works."

Two days after going through the initial evaluation and treatment with Skumawitz, Hill was back on the pitch. Weeks later, the Golden Bears' season began, and Hill's name was not only on the roster, but she started at defender all season long, helping Temecula Valley to a school-record setting season with 18 shutouts and an 18-4-2 record while also earning All-Southwestern League honors and All-CIF-SS Academic Team honors along the way.

By season's end, she had earned the opportunity to play soccer at UC Riverside next fall. And thanks to her daily 40-minute ritual, Hill was able to find a future in a sport she didn't think she would have.

"I thought my back would be hurting forever, and I was nervous that I wouldn't be able to play at all (this year)," Hill said. "And if I did play, I thought I would be in pain. I didn't think it would just go away, but it did."

Nearly the same success story unfolded in Skumawitz's life eight years prior, when the then-Cornell student-athlete began using The Egoscue Method to help his ailing back. He was 19 and on the brink of surgery. But Skumawitz dodged the knife, and went on to star at Cornell and play professionally in Boston, Germany, and Norway.

After reaching the pinnacle of his sport ---- Europe's Premier League ---- the 1997 Fallbrook High School graduate settled in Temecula. He started a youth soccer training school called Football Proper, and began treating individuals in The Egoscue Method after being certified at Egoscue's headquarters in San Diego last summer.

The motto on the Egoscue website sums up the Method's purpose: "A pain-free active lifestyle is not only possible, it is the way you should expect to feel and live."

That's what Skumawitz wanted to spread, because to him it just made sense.

"It's logical and it's rational," Skumawitz said of the method. "It's passive exercises which train the muscles to hold the skeleton correctly.

"It can be very effective for someone in pain. First it gets them to feel better, and then it strengthens and increases the body's potential."

Developed in the 1970s by Pete Egoscue, a Vietnam veteran who was seeking a treatment to cure his war-related injuries, The Egoscue Method, according to its official website is: "A Postural Therapy program which involves a series of stretches and gentle exercises. It is designed to treat musculoskeletal pain without drugs, surgery, or manipulation, enabling you to live a pain free and active life now."

Egoscue works under the pretense that most people ---- athlete or not ---- push through a daily routine which can train the body to rest in an unnatural position or to repeatedly go through a strenuously-harmful motion; whether it's sitting in your car trying to bear the traffic to Orange County or San Diego, throwing a 90 m.p.h. fastball over and over again, or suffering a possible serious injury.

The Egoscue Method seeks to correct the damage done by those activities by correcting the body's posture through a series of exercises, stretches and passive positions. It has helped all kinds of people ranging from the non-athlete to the professional athlete ---- including the NFL's John Lynch and Junior Seau, the Padres' Trevor Hoffman and Dave Roberts, and golfer Jack Nicklaus.

In the case of such elite athletes, the method not only serves to restore the body to a healthy state, but it also seeks to increase the body's level of performance.

"Whatever pain you may have, it reverts the body to go back to a healthy aligned state." said Skumawitz, who has also seen the Egoscue treatment plan work because it gives the patient the opportunity to be pro-active in their own healing.

"You have to have the motivation to get better," Skumawitz said. "Stephanie's motivation was clear ---- she hadn't been playing for months ---- so she would get up at 5 a.m. to do her stretches if she had somewhere to be at 7. She knew if she didn't that her body could get back out of alignment.

"It's a lifestyle change."

Becky Freeman can be reached at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2630 or at bfreeman@californian.com.

Hill's choice to make the daily commitment was an easy one because the results for her were well worth it ---- for in lieu of a painful existence not playing soccer, she's living a pain-free and fully-functional life.