Overpower Pain

Overpower Pain
Mitchell T. Yass, PT
Sentient Publications
ISBN: 978-1-59181-075-9
Non-Fiction, Health
Reviewed by Dr. Tami Brady

We often assume that chronic pain relates to a particular physical injury such as a herniated disc or arthritis when the real culprit is muscular imbalance. According to Mitchell Yass, author of Overpower Pain, it is often very difficult to diagnose such conditions. On an x-ray, the bones may actually appear to be misaligned or otherwise damaged. However, this data can be misleading. Often muscle mass is concentrated in certain areas which causes shortenings in opposing muscle groups. This can actually cause the types of alignments seen on x-rays.
Overpower Pain looks at the very common problem of chronic pain being caused by muscular imbalance and weakness. The information that the author presents could save the average person a good deal of money while quite possibly relieving their pain symptoms, all without surgery.
However, the thing that interested me most about this book was that I learned about how the muscles work together. For years, I have had lower back pain. I have tried everything to strengthen my back. After reading this book, I now understand why these exercises never worked. I was working the wrong muscle groups. The scary thing is that in doing so, I was actually making the problem worse.