Chronic Pain = Chronic Tightness

Anu Lawrence • February 21, 2025

 Relaxed muscles rarely hurt. Teaching your muscles to stop compensating is very important in living a pain free life. 

Did you know that chronic pain is often just chronic tightness?


That’s right. Most of the time, a relaxed muscle doesn’t hurt, unless there’s a serious injury. Even in injury, muscles typically tighten to protect the area. So when muscles stay tight long-term, it’s usually because they’re trying to compensate or protect something else in the body.


Maybe a muscle is picking up the slack for a joint that’s unstable. Or maybe it’s guarding an area that’s overworked, misaligned, or simply not functioning well.


This is why we focus so much on deep breathing, staying relaxed, and moving with awareness during exercises. You're not just learning how to activate muscles, you’re also teaching them how to let go when they’re not needed.

Because if those muscles can stop being tight all the time, they can stop hurting all the time.


That’s a big part of why posture therapy helps people feel better quickly, we’re not just “stretching” or “strengthening.” We’re retraining your body to turn muscles on when needed, and off when they’re not.


Serving Colorado from our centrally located office in Westminster and seeing clients from Fort Collins to Colorado Springs, Denver and Boulder, we can also help globally via WebCam such as Zoom or FaceTime.


Anu Lawrence owned Egoscue Method clinics for over a decade before moving to private practice in 2022 and is a certified master instructor in the Egoscue Method, having learned the craft from Pete Egoscue directly.

By Lawrence April 11, 2026
Pandiculation is the process of resetting muscle length and tension. Animals do it naturally after rest. A dog or cat will arch its spine, then round it. Here’s what happens: Arching activates the extensor muscles Rounding activates the flexor muscles. Activating one group and then the other helps each side release when not in use. This movement restores neutral balance in the spine. In posture therapy, working the opposing muscle group can help fix a muscle that is overactive or not firing when needed. This improves muscle coordination and reduces tension. Serving Colorado from our centrally located office in Westminster and seeing clients from Fort Collins to Colorado Springs, Denver and Boulder, we can also help globally via WebCam such as Zoom or FaceTime. Anu Lawrence owned Egoscue Method clinics for over a decade before moving to private practice in 2022 and is a certified master instructor in the Egoscue Method, having learned the craft from Pete Egoscue directly.
Person performing posture therapy exercise using a resistance band to demonstrate why consistency ma
By Lawrence March 1, 2026
Person performing posture therapy exercise using a resistance band to demonstrate why consistency matters in posture correction and long-term alignment improvement.