Is that Injury a thing of the past?
Column #59, 20th December 2008
As a Corrective Exercise Coach I am fascinated daily by human function. Each day throws up something new, a puzzle to set the mind to. Non more interesting than the effect of injury on the body.
Injury Puzzle
What kind of injuries are we talking about? Well, any. The body is amazing at responding to injury, often compensating the way we move and function. This innate quality means that we can still perform movements, get from A to B and basically get things done, whilst the injured area is able to heal. For example, when we injure a foot/knee/hip, we typically develop a 'new' way of walking, or limp. This is to take load and pressure of the painful side. This change in the movement pattern is to compensate.
This means that current and even past injuries will have a major impact on movement patterns and consequently your health and performance levels. When thinking about your approach to enhanced well-being, it is important that you consider this influential factor.
Take a few moments after reading this article to:
- First draw a stick-man/women, which will represent you,
- Then use a red pen to draw a circle to locate any CURRENT injuries you have.
- Then use a black pen to draw a circle to locate any PAST injuries you’ve had.
- It is helpful to think of the details of the injury/ache/pain/ailment such as, timescale, severity, treatment and symptoms.
Problem solving
Most of us appreciate that when we do have an injury, pain or a medical condition, we need intervention from a trained practitioner (doctor, chiropractor, physiotherapist). This will provide the most efficient steps to rehabilitation and recovery. If we neglect the issue or do what a lot of us do which is ‘just live with it’, it can lead to problems further on down the road. Even years later, when the pain has gone, incomplete functional rehabilitation will have its influence.
This longevity can be hard to grasp and not surprisingly when we consider all the bumps, scrapes, sports injuries and accidents we may have been involved in. As an example, when training a client recently we found that when they performed a standing twisting reach that they could get substantially further around in one direction than the other. Now because the body knows only ‘movement patterns’ and is an ‘integrated system’, this prompted me to ask whether they had ever had a badly sprained ankle, to which they answered yes and they had never actually properly rehabilitated it.
It turns out that they had not previously mentioned this to me as they thought it insignificant. Yet the ankle was having a considerable affect on the way her body was able to twist round and reach with her arm. This can have sizeable knock-on effects, from pain in other areas (knee, hip, lower back, neck, shoulder) and postural dysfunction to changes in movement patterns and impaired performance.
