Muscular Retraining for Pain-Free Living

Here's an innovative and practical approach to eliminating chronic muscle pain, written by a popular occupational therapist with thirty years of experience freeing people from the discomfort of tendonitis, lower back pain, and neck and shoulder tension. These types of chronic pain can be caused by a number of factors, including old injuries, habitual movement patterns, problems with body alignment, psychological causes, and inability to sense your own body movements accurately. Muscular Retraining for Pain-Free Living clearly and concisely explains the causes of persistent muscle pain and offers a therapeutic exercise program to address these problems and end pain.


This book explains the basic principles behind Williamson Muscular Retraining, a pain-relief discipline, in a way that is practical and easy to understand. The problems of poor posture, muscle tension, and stress-caused pain are corrected by seeing them through the lens of kinesthetic awareness. Normal kinesthetic awareness is lacking in much of the population and typically overlooked by health care practitioners. Muscular Retraining for Pain-Free Living presents case examples of how people have used kinesthetic awareness and exercises to change how they think of their bodies and to end pain. "Williamson's true gift is guidance in understanding the connection among body movement, self awareness, and relaxation."—Library Journal

"This book contains the keys to living fully and freely in your body."—Christine Northrup, MD, author of Mother-Daughter Wisdom and Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom

"Everyone in pain, and those who treat them, should read this book."—Karen Margolis, MD, Senior Clinical Investigator, HealthPartners Research Foundation; Associate Professor, University of Minnesota Medical School

"Muscular Retraining for Pain-Free Living is an important contribution to the literature on diagnosis and treatment of musculo-skeletal problems."—Douglas W. Brown, MD, President, American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine; former Team Physician, U.S. National Soccer Teams (1986–2004)

"Craig Williamson has written a brilliant book: clear, concise, and profound. Reading it may not only change your awareness of your body, it may also change your life."—Donald Hankinson, DO, Director of Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine at Maine Medical Center

"Craig has paid his dues in many years of exploring the field, from the arts to psychotherapy to the biomechanical sciences. His book is a breath of fresh air—an appeal to the innate but largely unused power of our kinesthetic intelligence to heal and 'right' ourselves."—Tom Myers, LMT, NCTMB, author of Anatomy Trains

"I recommend Muscular Retraining for Pain-Free Living for yoga teachers as well as anyone who wants to move with better function, elegance, and ease."—Judith Hanson Lasater, PhD, physical therapist and yoga teacher since 1971; author of six books, including A Year of Living Your Yoga

"Craig Williamson's Muscular Retraining for Pain-Free Living is a revelation for people who seek relief from chronic bodily pain. It is a book about healing that works, because Craig knows the vital importance of awareness to healthy living."—Robert K. Hall, MD, cofounder Lomi School; author of Out of Nowhere; Dharma teacher

"Muscular Retraining for Pain-Free Living opens the door to healing through increased awareness—for professionals, athletes, dancers, and people in the street. Author Craig Williamson extends an invitation to all readers to discover their own habitual patterns and transform connections between their minds and bodies. I recommend it to students and teachers alike as an accessible and useful guide to come back to again and again."—June Vail, Professor of Dance, Bowdoin CollegeCraig Williamson, MSOT, is an occupational therapist who treats patients with persistent pain problems. He is the pioneer of Somatic Integration (www.somaticintegration.com), an approach to muscular pain relief that includes muscular retraining techniques and specific, targeted exercises. He lives and practices in Portland, Maine.