12/05/2026
Is it refusal, or is movement feeling harder than it should?
Sometimes young athletes avoid running, jumping, squatting, or sport — not because they do not want to participate, but because movement simply does not feel right in their body.
What makes this harder to spot is that children are remarkably good at adapting. By the time a parent notices something, the body may have already been quietly working around a problem for a long time — without the child ever complaining of pain.
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Earlier this week, I worked with a young athlete who was finding squatting uncomfortable on both knees and walking with an uneven pattern.
When I first asked him to walk, he was noticeably reluctant. He did not say it hurt to walk. He just did not want to. He could not really explain why — he only knew it did not feel comfortable.
His parents had also noticed something a little unusual when he went down stairs — he was rotating his right hip forward to descend, rather than moving straight through. He never complained it was painful. His body had simply found a way around the discomfort without him realising. That pattern appeared to be placing extra load on his right lower back over time.
Using VALD ForceDecks, I looked at how he was organising load during a squat. The assessment showed a strong right-side loading preference — one side was doing significantly more of the work, especially during the lowering and braking part of the movement.
After soft tissue assessment, movement work, and myofascial release, I repeated the same squat assessment. The second test showed a different loading pattern, and the athlete reported the squats felt easier and more comfortable.
Then something shifted that the numbers could not fully capture.
By the end of the session, he was no longer reluctant to move.
He was walking quickly around the room, spontaneously squatting, jumping, exploring movement on his own. Nobody asked him to. He just started moving — and enjoying it.
The stair pattern looked more even. The right lower back discomfort he had mentioned was no longer present.
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He came back one week later for a second session.
His father mentioned something straight away — without being asked — that his son's left leg looked noticeably straighter when he walked.
On reassessment, the loading pattern had held. The right-side preference had not returned to where it started. The stair and lower back findings remained consistent.
The knee discomfort was still present. That is not unusual — when a joint begins loading through a different position, some adjustment time is a normal part of the process.
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This is why I combine remedial massage with movement assessment.
Sometimes the most important question is not "where does it hurt?" but "what has the body been quietly doing to avoid the pain — and what happens when that pattern starts to shift?"
A child who arrives not wanting to walk, and leaves jumping and squatting on their own — that is worth paying attention to.
If you have noticed something that looks a little off in how your child moves, even if they are not complaining, it may be worth understanding the pattern behind it.
Feel free to get in touch or visit healyoungmassage.com.au
Educational reflection only. Not medical advice. Individual presentations vary. Assessment tool: VALD ForceDecks.
