Shapeshift Wellness

Shapeshift Wellness We empower people with chronic low back pain & sciatica to reclaim the active life they love.

07/29/2026

The most important rule for choosing back pain exercises. ⬇️
Stop asking which exercise is good or bad. Start asking about dosage.
Dosage = frequency, intensity, sets, reps, volume, etc
In other words, how do we choose when to progress, regress, or modify exercises? How much of it are we doing, and how often?
The rule that matters most for low back pain and sciatica is what I call the Rule of Too's.
Do too much too fast and you skip steps. Your body wasn't ready, so you flare things up.
Do too little for too long and you baby yourself. You never build real strength, so you stay stuck, deconditioned, and hypersensitive.
Almost everyone I work with is living at one of those two extremes. Bouncing between them is why the pain never fully settles.
The skill is finding the middle. Challenge yourself enough to get stronger, but don't push so fast that you flare things up.
That answer is different for every person, and it changes as you progress. It depends on your symptoms, your history, and what your body can handle today.
There are no exercises that are inherently good or bad. The only question is what amount and intensity you're prepared for right now, and how you step it up from there.
DM me "Beyond Pain" to learn about 1:1 coaching to help you get back to an active life. ⬇️

07/28/2026

Can't find a position that doesn't hurt? Try this. ⬇️
The pelvic tilt works in any position: standing, sitting, lying on your back, on all fours.
But the real reason I love it for back pain: you can go in both directions.
If spinal flexion hurts (tucking your pelvis under) and extension feels okay, start with extension. You're still moving all the joints in your lumbar spine.
Same thing in reverse. Use whichever direction feels tolerable right now.
⭐️ You don't need to be pain-free to start. Just find the direction that works for your body today.
Start with just a small range of motion and gradually increase depth over time.
You can even just move slightly into a range of motion and hold it and do some peaceful breathing.
DM me "Beyond Pain" to learn about 1:1 coaching to help you get back to an active life. ⬇️

07/27/2026

"Which exercise should I do for back pain?" is the wrong question. ⬇️
People argue about flexion versus extension, hip mobility versus hip strength, stretching versus strengthening. That's like debating whether to drink water.
You need all of it. What matters is the dosage: the right amount at the right intensity, progressed systematically. ⭐️
The Rule of Too's: too much too fast spikes symptoms, and too little for too long keeps you deconditioned and stuck.
Yes, you need a full-body approach to mobility and strength, and gradually progress difficulty over time. It's not one or the other. It's not about finding one magic exercise to fix one magic muscle.
Not to mention stress, sleep, and nutrition drive chronic pain just as much as movement does. All of it matters. 🏃🥗🧘
If you need help figuring out the right dosage for where you are right now, we're here.
DM me "Beyond Pain" to learn about 1:1 coaching to help you get back to an active life. ⬇️

07/26/2026

Low back locked up on you? Do these 3 things. ⬇️
1. Calm your nervous system down.
When you're in pain, your body goes into defense mode. Muscles brace and spasm to "protect" you. Slow breathing and any position that feels reasonably comfortable send your nervous system signals of safety.
2. Use gentle self-massage to take the edge off and calm those muscle spasms.
Combine self-massage with peaceful breathing to relax your body and help you to stop freaking out
3. Move.
This is the big one. Getting locked up in bed feels safe, but it's how a flare-up turns into weeks or months of deconditioning and chronic pain. We want you moving again as soon as you can tolerate it.
To be clear, you can start with movements that are so gentle they don't even feel like exercise. I promise there's a starting place for everybody, no matter how debilitating a flare-up is.
Calm s**t down first, then build it back up. One step at a time.
DM me "Beyond Pain" to learn about 1:1 coaching to help you get back to an active life. ⬇️

07/25/2026

Spinal mobility is the ONE THING I'd focus on to start people off. ⬇️
So many people DM me asking "which exercise should I do?"
That's an impossible question to answer without knowing your condition, symptoms, limitations, and goals.
Plus, even if I knew all that, I still couldn't just give you ONE exericse that would do anything meaningful for you.
That's because you need a FULL-BODY approach with graded exposure to strength and mobility.
However, if I absolutely HAD to recommend ONE thing that would help most people with chronic low back pain or sciatica...
It would be spinal mobility.
When you regain the ability to move your spine and stop fearing normal motions, something shifts. You're not as scared to squat anymore. Or hinge. Or pick something up off the floor.
You just start doing those things again.
And THAT is what actually fixes back pain long-term: getting back to real, full-body exercise.
The spinal mobility work is the gateway. Normal movement is the destination.
If you're doing rehab exercises but never making it back to actual exercise, you're stuck in the middle. That's where I come in.
DM me "Beyond Pain" to learn about 1:1 coaching to help you get back to an active life. ⬇️

07/24/2026

If you've tried everything for your back pain, that's actually part of the problem. ⬇️
You might have gotten short-term relief here and there. But something keeps randomly flaring you up, and you can't figure out why.
The cause: violating the Rule of Too's.
If you do too much, too fast, after doing too little for too long, bad things happen
If you do too much too fast, you're skipping steps and you're probably going to flare things up.
If you do too little for too long, you're babying yourself, and you're never going to get stronger, which means you'll be stuck in rehab purgatory forever.
So instead of distracting yourself with complicated rehab exercises that target one magical muscle or magic joint (whatever flavor of the week trend is circulating on social media), we need to focus on the basics.
Don't skip steps, but don't baby yourself either.
Beyond that, we need to zoom out, look at you like a whole person, and realize that things like stress, sleep, and nutrition also impact chronic pain just as much as exercise.
Stop looking for a one-size-fits-all simple solution to pain. It doesn't exist.
DM me "Beyond Pain" to learn about 1:1 coaching to help you get back to an active life. ⬇️

07/23/2026

Root cause of chronic pain? ⬇️

Most people with back pain blame the physical stuff: disc herniation, stenosis, bone spurs.
Those findings show up on MRIs for most people, whether or not they have pain. So it's not the whole picture.
Instead, think about ALL the factors that influence pain. "What's in your cup?"
Overtraining. Stress. Poor sleep. Bad nutrition. A nervous system that never gets a break.
When that cup overflows, pain spikes. Even when nothing structurally changed.
Recovery means working on three things: drain the cup, stop overfilling it, and build a bigger cup over time so you can handle more.
That means prioritizing strength, mobility, stress management, and getting decent recovery.
DM me "Beyond Pain" to learn about 1:1 coaching to help you get back to an active life. ⬇️

07/21/2026

One-size-fits-all solutions make back pain worse. ⬇️
The most important rule of rehab: real recovery requires addressing multiple systems at once. Strength, mobility, cardio, and lifestyle change. ⭐️
Here's what tends to happen when you pick just one:
❌ Core stability as the only answer leaves your spine stiff, your other systems untrained, and your lifestyle factors unaddressed.
❌ McKenzie method as the only answer keeps you in extension work without building the full range your body needs to function.
Both tools have real value. The issue is treating either one as a complete plan.
Too little for too long keeps you deconditioned and makes pain worse over time. That's as true for doing only core work as it is for doing nothing.
Stress, sleep, and nutrition drive nervous system sensitization just as much as exercise does. 🏃🥗🧘
If you need help building a real plan, we're here.
DM me "Beyond Pain" to learn about 1:1 coaching to help you get back to an active life. ⬇️

07/20/2026

PAIN is an alarm system. Here's how to turn it off. ⬇️
When you're dealing with chronic pain, your body wants to freak out. Muscles spasm. Nervous system stays on high alert. It's all your brain trying to keep you safe.
Your nervous system works like an alarm system.
Smoke is the input. The alarm is the output.
Pain is the alarm. Your brain is outputting it based on everything it's picking up: old injury history, fear of movement, stress at home, poor sleep. All of that is "smoke" going into the system.
A tiny bit of "smoke" shouldn't trigger the alarm.
But with chronic pain, even a tiny bit of smoke DOES trigger the alarm.
The alarm keeps going off because the system thinks you're still in danger.
The goal isn't to ignore the alarm. It's to show your nervous system that you're safe. That's what changes chronic pain.
So we want to reduce the smoke and reduce the sensitivity of the alarm, recalibrate things.
Reducing the smoke looks like:
- Calming things down
- Doing an appropriate level of activity
- Reducing sources of stress or inflammation, etc.
Recalibrating the alarm system so you can handle more and be more resilient looks like:
- Strength and mobility training
- Positive experiences with movement
- Getting proper sleep and nutrition for good recovery
- And educating yourself on chronic pain science to reduce fear
Hurt doesn't equal harm. You don't need to live in fear just because your MRI has some scary words on it.
DM me "Beyond Pain" to learn about 1:1 coaching to help you get back to an active life. ⬇️

07/19/2026

Dead bugs and bird dogs are making your back WORSE. ⬇️
Not because the exercises themselves are bad...
And it's definitely not dangerous. These exercises are okay as a stepping stone during rehab, BUT...
Most people with back pain have been doing core stability work for years. And they're still hurting. Why?
Because you're being taught to never bend your spine, so it's the philosophy that goes with these core stabilizers that's the real problem.
A rehab dogma that teaches you never to bend your spine will make your pain worse long-term.
Duh, because movement is what determines the health of your muscles, tendons, joints, and spinal discs
Real recovery isn't about stabilizing your spine. It's about unlearning all that guarding.
The gateway back to a normal life is moving your spine freely again. Losing the fear.
When you stop treating your back like it's fragile, you start doing normal things again: squats, hinges, walks, carrying groceries. That full-body movement is what actually fixes back pain long-term.
DM me "Beyond Pain" to learn about 1:1 coaching to help you get back to an active life. ⬇️

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