List orthopedic symptoms – Rolfing

Rolfing - Berlin & Munich

If pumpkin hollowing out for Halloween was a profession. How would the body of the two boys react to this stress after 10 or 20 or 30 years? How would they adapt? What symptoms would you expect?


Local orthopedic symptoms

Local symptoms usually manifest themselves in painful movement restrictions. Relatively quickly, the body begins to develop a protective posture to protect the affected area. In Rolfing® we relieve and mobilise this region. In addition, we analyse the movement pattern and help the body to leave the protective posture with various manual techniques.


Injuries and rehabilitation

In addition to the classic rehabilitation measures, you can use Rolfing® to speed up the recovery of your health. You can use it to counter the late effects of accidents and postural difficulties as early as possible. This applies to the following symptoms:


Rolfing - Berlin & München

Photo by Teddy Kelley on Unsplash

  • Posture problems and limited mobility
  • Problems sitting at the PC
    Working on your PC does not become any less – nor does your daily back pain. Shoulders, neck and your lower back tense up daily and slow down your motivation.
  • Problems with standing for long periods of time
    When you have to stand for a long time, your body becomes tense. Tension pains then occur in various places, which you cannot easily avoid. The tensions are usually deep in the pelvis, at the lumbar spine or on the legs, knees or feet.
  • Problems bending down and lifting loads
    It’s hard for you to bend down – and even harder for you to get back up from your squatting position. Your back feels tough and immobile. The lumbar spine probably hurts. The back of the legs are shortened as to spare load on the knees. You avoid lifting loads.
  • Problems when putting on socks
    Standing on one leg, you just can’t get your foot high enough to put on your socks. You have to sit down. Then you can do it to some extent. You can clearly feel the tension in your back and buttocks that restricts your mobility. From year to year it becomes more difficult with the socks and you may believe this is simply a by-product of „aging“.
  • Problems lying down and falling asleep
    You can only lie on one side, only on the left or only on the right side. The other side feels uncomfortable and there are places that start to hurt after a while. Or you can only lie painlessly on your stomach or back. Perhaps you have already bought a new expensive mattress.
  • Parking problems
    When you park your car, you have to turn halfway in your seat to look backwards. This movement is difficult for you, is tough and you can feel places in your neck and back that are locked against it.
  • Posture problems
    “Boy, sit up straight,” said the mother loudly to the son. – You immediately know what is meant. These are general posture problems. They begin in youth and worsen with increasing age. Poor posture cannot be inherited, but it can be acquired.
  • Neck pain and tense shoulders
    The neck reacts quite sensitively to uneven tension distribution in the body. From stress to poor posture, the neck is often the victim. The cause often lies in the pelvis and the way you carry your head over your feet. In general, the shoulders are also involved.
  • Tension headaches
    Headaches caused by tension in the shoulders and neck are caused by a narrowing of the blood vessels that supply the head. The causes of Tension headaches are complex. A balanced posture is an essential prerequisite for your head to be able to move in a relaxed manner.
  • Shoulders are unevenly high
    Unevenly high shoulders are a good indication that one half of the body is under more strain and has to hold more.
  • Shoulders are pulled up
    You always carry your shoulders slightly pulled up and your arms usually lie close to your upper body. It is difficult for you to stretch your arms sideways and upwards because your muscles are shortened around the shoulder blades. There are various tensions around the shoulder blades.
  • Head slips forward
    The head slips forward between the shoulders. Your neck and shoulders are tense. You may also have tension in your forearms. You have problems looking upwards.
  • Rounded back
    The back becomes rounder and rounder over the years. This is not a sign of aging, because even teenagers can develop a round back. When you stand up, you notice that breathing through your chest is difficult. On the other hand, abdominal breathing is easy for you.
  • Flat back
    If the natural curvature of the spine is small, we speak of a flat back. This is caused by an overstretching of the spine and is accompanied by tension around the permanently stretched spine.
  • Hollow back (hyperlordosis)
    A hollow back arises when the pelvis tilts forward. This leads to tension in the lumbar vertebrae, sacrum, groin area and also in the legs. If you wear high heels, the tension pain becomes even worse.
  • Insecurity in the feet
    You feel insecurity in your feet with every step. Walking feels shaky.
  • Breathing is difficult
    Your breathing is rather shallow. Deep inhalation or deep exhalation is exhausting. You have had tension in your chest for so long that you no longer notice it.
  • Loss of flexibility
    The body feels tight, sticky, tough and immobile. There are places that are particularly tense, and some of your movements are already somewhat restricted.

Acute pain

If you have acute pain or have injured yourself, please see a doctor or go straight to the hospital. Rolfers do not usually work on acute cases. However, once the wound has healed or the stitches have been removed after the operation, we are happy to make an appointment.


Symptoms are like signposts in Rolfing treatment

If you use your body one-sided then you train it in your everyday life in this direction. e.g. if you walk bent over the street for a thousand days your body will perceive this posture at the end as “normal”. You have now trained it into this posture. As a result, over the course of months and years the body builds up more and more stability at certain points, so much stability that the tissue becomes very dense and narrow.

The tissue becomes meshed, becomes inflexible and you have increasing pain in this area. This is then called chronic tension.

On the other hand, there are areas in your body that have too little stability. It is often the case that these unstable areas do not cause any pain and are faded out by the body consciousness. Clients who come to me often don’t even know that they exist.

In Rolfing we basically do not treat any symptoms. We look at the movement pattern behind the symptoms. We look at the body as a whole as it moves in everyday life. We look at the entire body statics, see where there is too much and where is too little stability, and then begin to slowly change this relationship. This changes your movement pattern a little bit. This “little” can do a lot of things. – The symptoms you came here for then decrease or disappear, almost by themselves.


If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me in my practice in Berlin or Munich. Here you will find the contact page.

MerkenMerken