A reminder from Margaret on the importance of taking a root cause approach…

We were just over four miles into a 10-mile run when it happened. We were in the beautiful Forest Park in Portland’s northwest. It’s a lovely trail for long runs with mile-markers every quarter mile and a nice wide path with few hazards. No concrete, the quiet of the forest, oxygen-saturated air, time to reflect and reconnect with one of my closest girlfriends. The perfect way to start a weekend.

Suddenly my right knee started to complain, loudly. We stopped running and I immediately started walking sideways, a trick I’d learned from this very girlfriend to wake up my glutes. This was usually all I needed to get back in balance so we could continue on our run. Unfortunately this time it wasn’t working.

Thankfully said girlfriend was none other than fitness rehabilitation expert, Laura Coleman. I knew whatever happened, I was in good hands.

At her suggestion we ran backwards for a while.

Then I did some bear crawls.

More walking sideways.

Nothing worked. And, now, any straight ahead motion had me cringing in pain.

I asked Laura if we should turn around, even though I already knew her answer. “No” she said flatly. “Okay fine,” I sighed. I decided to trust her and keep going.

Now, on one level this makes no sense. I was clearly injured. Why would we go further into the woods instead of back to the safety of home, my couch, some anti-inflammatories, and an ice pack??

Laura has a very different approach than the standard “RICE” treatment of injuries, and I chose to trust it.

Instead of simply easing the discomfort of symptoms, we would get to the root of the problem and work to re-establish functional balance so that my knee wouldn’t have reason to complain. The only way to do this was to keep going. Stopping, icing, resting, and so on did nothing except alleviate the pain. It wouldn’t help us get to the root of the problem in any way.
We kept going. And we kept investigating…

I walked sideways on each side noticing which glute was awake and which glute was asleep. I walked backwards. I did more bear crawls. We ran slowly forward going uphill, consciously focusing on driving through our heels to engage glutes and hamstrings (this was my aha! moment – I had no access to my hamstrings – that’s kind of a big deal). After a while I settled into a form of exaggerated speed walking really focusing on my knee extension, glutes and hamstrings.

I tentatively tried to run again.

No pain. Not even a hint of it.

By this point we’d reached our turn-around and were heading back to the car. At about 6 miles into the run, I was able to run again – normal pace, pain free. Brilliant!

I turned to Laura: “God you’re good.” She just laughed. But the story doesn’t end there.

The next day, I woke up and now my left knee was a little wonky. I broke out the tools I’ve learnt from Laura over the years: rolling out my legs; doing exercises to engage my glutes, hamstrings, and hip flexors; twisting to open up my spine. It helped.

Monday morning arrived and my right knee was happy as a clam but that left knee was still a little crimpy. Typically, I do a pretty intense workout on Monday mornings and I hesitated. Should I go ahead and do it? Wasn’t that risky? What if I really injured myself this time?

Laura isn’t a fan of resting through injury and I could hear her in my head: “There’s no such thing as ‘I can’t!’” so, I did the class, using every exercise as an opportunity to check in with my muscles: Which muscles are awake and working properly? Which aren’t? What can I activate and focus on with this exercise?

Moving my body felt good. It was one of the more focused workouts I’ve ever done. A couple of movements didn’t feel good so I modified them to something that would focus on activating key stabilization muscles instead. All good.

After class, I spent a little time with Laura directly. We quickly uncovered the root of the issue (in case you’re interested: left hamstring almost completely unresponsive due to left quad being totally locked up). We worked on it for a good 45 minutes – me cursing at Laura through most of it because tight muscles hurt when you go to release them! I felt better, but not perfect afterwards.

That night, I continued the work. Things were feeling much better. Not 100%, but significantly improved.

And then it happened: I bent over to help my daughter in her bath and the stretch in my hamstrings felt great. So good that I stayed there for a while, stretching, when suddenly I felt a huge pull in my right leg and on standing, I could barely put any weight on it without screeching in pain. It was worse than it had been on the run. Significantly worse. All I could think was: F*ck!!

I tried not to cry. I’d been working on this now for three full days – rolling out, activating, releasing, rebalancing – and I felt defeated. I sent Laura a desperate text at 9:30pm… “I feel old and broken.” Her response: “Crawl.”

She was telling me to go back to the very basics and do some of the core foundational exercises – especially crawling. It calmed my knee down enough to get to sleep, and I woke up the next morning to continue the work. More crawling, releasing, activating. My daughter looked at me and said, “Mommy is crawling like a monster!!” Sadly, it fit.

I set the alarm on my phone and every 30 minutes I did some kind of exercise – crawl, release, activate. Then one time when I got up from work to do my next exercise I noticed: nothing. No pain. No discomfort. No tweaking. No pulls. Nothing out of balance. In fact, I felt better than I had before the run on Saturday morning.

I did a couple of squats just to see – beautiful! I walked up and down stairs – easy! I jumped, I skipped, I ran. All back in beautiful, blissful balance!

Now… that’s a big old story with probably more than you’ve ever wanted to know about my knees. But here’s the key point: When I finally fixed things, I had truly fixed them.

I had gotten to the absolute core of the problem and re-established my functional balance from there. I never once focused on the symptoms. Did it hurt? Heck yeah. But I used that pain as inspiration to keep going and feedback from my body that things were still out of balance.

I learned some powerful lessons that day, many of which remind me of the work we do as Restorative Health Practitioners:
To truly heal something, we have to move through it. We can’t turn away from it.
Symptoms are key messages that our body is giving us. Suppressing them tunes out the valuable feedback they provide.
Symptoms are powerful motivators. When we don’t rush to suppress them, they inspire meaningful action.
Getting to the core of an imbalance takes a lot of work, patience and trust in both the process and ourselves as practitioners. It is definitely the harder path, and at times, it downright sucks.
Sometimes things get worse before they get better – often before a real breakthrough.
If we don’t address the root of the issue, our clients will stay imbalanced and their metaphorical knee will continue to complain. Even if we hide the symptom and quiet it down artificially with anti-inflammatory strategies, we’re not actually doing anything about the real problem.
Finding the root issue isn’t always a straight path, often it’s a process of peeling back the layers to reveal new levels of imbalance.
Even though getting to the root problem can be hard work, it is totally worth every minute of it. And the end result is a balanced body that is optimized to truly thrive, rather than an endless and growing dependence on symptom-mitigation techniques.

Every day in your practice, you have a choice – do you focus on getting to the root of your clients’ health issues? Or, do you simply mitigate the symptoms they are experiencing? Sometimes, you need to do both – but, in my experience (and the experience of over 1,200 Restorative Health Practitioners), the benefits of addressing the root cause far outweigh the challenges of the process.

So, what are you addressing? The symptom, or the cause? If you want to learn more about how to address the cause, check out our foundational program Mastering the Art & Science of Gastrointestinal Healing.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Margaret Floyd Barry, FNTP MRHP is owner and Executive Director of the Institute of Restorative Health. She’s a functional nutritionist, author, speaker, educator, and real food advocate. Through years of experience working with the most complex client cases, including reversing her own autoimmune condition, Margaret uses a powerful system for restoring health by addressing the root cause of illness.

Today, Margaret teaches fellow practitioners the same proven system she uses to get her clients life-changing results through the Institute of Restorative Health – a two-year comprehensive functional nutrition certification program for qualified health professionals. Margaret also runs Restorative Corporate Wellness, a team of Restorative Health Practitioners facilitating health transformations with corporate clients. She is the author of Eat Naked and its follow-up cookbook The Naked Foods Cookbook. She’s also the host of the Clinician’s Corner podcast, where she interviews some of the world’s top experts in the fields of functional health and nutrition.

FAQ

The following FAQs expand on the clinical implications of a root-cause approach and how practitioners can apply these principles in practice.

What does it mean to address root cause instead of symptoms in clinical practice?
Addressing root cause means identifying and correcting the underlying imbalance rather than suppressing surface-level symptoms. Symptom suppression may provide short-term relief, but it does not resolve the dysfunction driving the complaint. A root-cause approach restores functional balance so symptoms no longer need to occur.

Why is symptom suppression insufficient for long-term healing?
Symptom suppression does not correct the underlying dysfunction causing the symptom. Strategies like rest or anti-inflammatory support may quiet discomfort temporarily, but they do not re-establish balance. Without correcting the root issue, symptoms are likely to persist or recur.

How can practitioners use symptoms as clinical feedback rather than something to eliminate?
Symptoms can be interpreted as meaningful feedback from the body about imbalance. Rather than immediately silencing them, practitioners can use symptom patterns to guide investigation into dysfunction. When symptoms are viewed as data, they help refine assessment and intervention.

What is functional balance and why does it matter clinically?
Functional balance refers to proper coordination and activation within a system so it operates efficiently and without strain. When balance is restored, compensations resolve and symptoms often diminish naturally. Long-term resilience depends on this restored coordination.

How do compensatory patterns contribute to pain or dysfunction?
Compensatory patterns occur when certain muscles or systems are underactive and others become overactive to compensate. This imbalance creates strain and can manifest as pain in seemingly unrelated areas. Identifying which components are “awake” versus “asleep” helps uncover the true source of dysfunction.

What are early signs of imbalance before overt injury or breakdown?
Early signs of imbalance often include subtle asymmetries, reduced activation, or mild discomfort. These signals may precede acute symptoms and represent opportunities for early intervention. Addressing dysfunction at this stage can prevent more significant breakdown.

Why might symptoms shift sides or locations during corrective work?
Symptoms may shift when underlying compensations are being uncovered and addressed.
As one imbalance resolves, another previously masked dysfunction may become more apparent. This reflects the layered nature of root-cause work.

Is it normal for symptoms to worsen before improving when addressing root causes?
Yes, temporary worsening can occur during root-cause correction. As dysfunctional patterns are challenged and reorganized, discomfort may increase before balance is restored. This often precedes meaningful breakthroughs.

How does a “move through it” philosophy apply clinically?
“Move through it” means working with dysfunction rather than withdrawing from it entirely. Strategic movement and targeted activation can restore balance, whereas complete avoidance may reinforce dysfunction. The key is intentional, corrective engagement—not reckless strain.

When should practitioners combine symptom mitigation with root-cause work?
In some cases, short-term symptom relief may be appropriate alongside deeper corrective work.
However, mitigation should not replace investigation into underlying imbalance. The primary goal remains long-term resolution through functional restoration.

Why does uncovering the root cause require patience and trust in the process?
Root-cause work often involves peeling back multiple layers of dysfunction. The path is rarely linear and may require ongoing reassessment. Trust in the methodology and clinical reasoning is essential for meaningful outcomes.

How does restoring functional balance reduce long-term dependence on symptom-based strategies?
When the underlying imbalance is corrected, symptoms lose their driver. This reduces reliance on repeated symptom-mitigation techniques and supports sustainable resilience. The outcome is an optimized system rather than ongoing management of recurring complaints.