Recently a Boston Marathon runner came to see me with two specific complaints, a pain in is right ankle and a nagging pain in his neck. To his surprise, when I began working on his right foot, he felt sensations in his neck.

We naturally assume that the site and the source of a physical problem are the same. For example, if our neck hurts, we want someone to rub our neck. Why? Because experience has taught us that when we stub our toe, or hit our thumb with a hammer, the pain and the event share a common source.

When it comes to chronic pain, however, it’s almost never the case. The reason is this: Our bodies are held together by a multifaceted membrane called connective tissue that runs unbroken from the top of our heads to our small toe. These tissues cover every part of our bodies and literally hold us together. To a large part, they define us. They give our bodies shape and structure and control our movements.

When these tissues become compromised through overuse, bad habits, injuries, accidents and other factors, they tend to thicken and bind together, causing structural limitations with far reaching consequences. Just like when you tug on the corner of a bed sheet, the strain will be felt at the opposite end, when stress in one part of this matrix occurs, it can impact places that would seemingly have no relevance to the original problem. And with each new insult to the body, these patterns grow in complexity until the breaking point is reached and chronic pain sets in.

To resolve these long standing problems, we must address the larger issue, the body itself. Imagine if the foundation of your house were to become stressed. No amount adjusting the windows and door frames above will ever solve the problem. The same is true of our physical structure and it is why Rolfing addresses the entire body, rather chase individual symptoms. Only when the entire body is brought into alignment again will issues like that nagging ankle or neck pain have any hope of being resolved.