Connect the dots to find the pattern

The 5 Pain Patterns Holding You Back (And How to Fix Them in 90 Days)

Pain doesn’t wait until a convenient time to get in your face.

It shows up when you get out of bed. When you sit too long. When you train - or stop training because you’re afraid of making it worse. It forces you to think about your body all day long, whether you want to or not.

You’ve probably tried resting it, stretching it, massaging the spot that hurts.

Maybe you were told your scans look “fine” or that it’s just part of getting older.

And yet it keeps coming back like marketing emails you’ve unsubscribed from five times already.

Listen, you can collect diagnoses all year long; but if the way you move doesn’t change, the pain won’t either.

Most chronic pain comes from a small number of movement patterns you repeat every single day—often without realizing it. Fix the pattern, and pain finally starts to loosen its grip.

 

 

1. Back Pain: When Your Spine Is Doing Everyone Else’s Job

If your back hurts, it’s rarely because your spine is “weak” or fragile.
It’s usually because it’s doing work your legs, glutes, and core are supposed to be doing.

What we commonly see:

  • Weak abdominals and spinal erectors

  • Little to no core bracing during daily movement

  • An anterior or posterior pelvic tilt

  • Legs and glutes that don’t meaningfully contribute

Sometimes it’s poor bracing of the core - or no bracing at all.

When your abs, back muscles, glutes, and legs don’t share the load, your spine steps in to compensate. It becomes the mover, stabilizer, and shock absorber - and those are roles it was never meant to handle alone.

That’s when bending, lifting, sitting, or even walking starts to hurt.

The goal isn’t to coddle your back forever. It’s to teach your legs, glutes, and core to do their jobs.

Want to learn more? Read our blogs on Disc Bulges, Herniations & Sciatica and anterior pelvic tilt.

 

 

2. Shoulder Pain: The Pinch of Instability

When you experience pain in your shoulder, here is what’s typically happening:

You can have strong arms and still irritate your shoulder every time you reach overhead. If the shoulder isn’t centered and supported, force goes straight into irritated tissue.

That’s why rest helps for a bit—and pain comes right back the moment you load it again.

What actually works is restoring stability and control first, then layering strength on top of that foundation.

For more detail, read our blogs on shoulder impingement pain and rounded shoulders/kyphosis. 

 

 

3. Hip Pain: When the Glutes Clock Out

Hip pain can be complicated. There’s a lot going on in that joint! Most of the time, the issue is simple: your glutes aren’t doing their share, and your pelvis isn’t where it should be.

Common patterns:

  • Weak or delayed glute engagement

  • A pelvis that’s rotated, shifted, or dumped forward

  • Hip flexors dominating movement

When your hips can’t extend and stabilize properly, force leaks elsewhere - often into your low back, SI joint, or deep hip tissues. 

Stretching might feel good temporarily, but it doesn’t restore missing contribution.

When hip extension and control break down like this, it’s often labeled as hip impingement — which is why we put together a full guide on how to fix hip impingement and avoid surgery.

If your pain feels more SI joint–related (toward the back of the hip), adding these ten exercises to your daily routine can help support that area as well.

The real fix is teaching your hips to generate force, control rotation, and support your body the way they were designed to.

 

 

4. Knee & Foot Pain: The Valgus Pattern

Knee pain is rarely just a knee problem.

More often, it’s the result of a breakdown through the entire lower chain, starting at the feet and finishing at the hips.

What’s usually going on:

  • Knee valgus (knees collapsing inward)

  • Weak or unstable feet and ankles

  • Poor hip control feeding stress into the knee

When your feet collapse and your hips can’t control rotation, your knee gets stuck in the middle managing forces it was never meant to handle. That’s why knee pain sticks around—even when imaging looks “normal.”

This inward collapse is called knee valgus, and it’s one of the most common reasons knee pain shows up with squats, running, stairs, and daily movement. We break it down in Knee Valgus: Why Your Knees Cave In—and How to Fix It.

Foot mechanics matter too. Flat feet and unstable ankles feed directly into knee stress, which is why fixing the knee alone rarely works. If this sounds familiar, see Fix Flat Feet, Inverted Ankles, and Foot Pain.

The goal isn’t to baby your knees forever. It’s to rebuild control from the ground up—feet, ankles, knees, and hips. They all work together.

 

 

5. Poor Posture: Forward Head & Rounded Shoulders

Poor posture just isn’t about sitting too much. It’s about living in positions your body never escapes from - and that can lead to a world of hurt.

What we usually see:

  • Forward head posture (aka "tech neck")

  • Rounded shoulders

  • Poor rib and head stacking

  • Neck and upper-back muscles working overtime

Over time, these positions become your default. Muscles stay tense. Joints lose options. Headaches, neck pain, and upper-back fatigue start to feel normal.

The goal isn’t perfect posture. It’s restoring stacked alignment and movement options, so your body isn’t trapped in one shape all day.

 

 

Why 90 Days Is the Turning Point

You don’t fix movement patterns with random workouts.

You fix them by:

  • Repeating aligned movement

  • Long enough for your nervous system to trust it

  • While progressively loading the right tissues

For most people, that learning window is about 90 days.

"DAY 15 OF THE PROGRAM: the level of care, attention, and insight I have gained in 15 days has far surpassed anything I have gotten since my MRI diagnosis back in August of this year. You will not find this level of precision in understanding body mechanics anywhere else even if you look for it. Instead of chasing the diagnosis and “treatment” I dialed into more of how my body is moving each day and alignment (WHICH I ONLY LEARNT HERE) and finally feel like I’m on the road to recovery." - Krista

 

 

The Bottom Line

If you've read this far, you’ve probably recognized yourself in at least one of these patterns, maybe more.

That’s not because your body is “a mess.” It’s because pain doesn’t come from one bad joint or one bad day.

It comes from how you move when you’re brushing your teeth.
How you stand when you’re waiting in line.
How you bend, press, walk, sit, and train every day, without thinking about it.

And those habits don’t change just because someone gives the pain a name. They change when you learn how to move differently - and then actually practice it long enough for your body to find a new normal.

That’s what our 90-day programs are built to do. And we believe in this process so much we back it up with a money back guarantee. Read more about our Fix Yo Sh*t 90 Day Challenge here, because there are conditions. We're not Santa Clause granting wishes. We're coaching specialists that will work with you to get you moving better and living free from chronic pain.

Join MoveU today and let's get started. 

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