When training athletes/clients many say I have a puzzled look on my face or a look of deep concentration. Well, yes it is my thinking face! I don’t just coach someone for the sake of coaching them. I train clients to see performance improve that are relevant to their goals. I see so many people with musculoskeletal injuries and a week ago I was training one of my clients and she is a visual learner. So I showed her the interactive diagram of the human body on my laptop and explained in detail what was happening with her particular problem she is suffering from. After probably frying her brain she said to me, “Is this what you think all the time?”
There can be many causes of musculoskeletal injuries and there are different theories that can explain how these injuries may arise. One theory I believe in is the Differential-Fatigue theory. The theory explains that depending on the activity, certain joints are loaded differentially and depending on the motion being performed, different muscles operating at the joint may also be differentially loaded resulting a kinematic change. Prolonged and repeated loading of the joints, is likely to result in injury. In the short-term the different muscles operating the joint undergo different amounts of fatigue and the rate with which they fatigue may also be different. In the long term however, such activities that are repetitive or compensatory of either injury, lack of mobility/flexibility however, the forgoing altered muscle kinetics can result in the kinematics and the loading pattern upon the joint to change resulting in a negative outcome (injury).
This then always raises the question, “I don’t understand how the injury occurred? I exercise 10 times a week, warm-up properly and cool-down properly?” However, you ask the athlete/client if they stretch and usually that results in a laugh or straight up no. Like I say to all my athletes and clients, your body works off a kinetic chain. There is either mobility or stability joints. Your body relies on this kinetic chain pattern to reoccur throughout the body otherwise the result is usually injury. Starting at your ankle upwards the chain goes mobility (ankle), stability (knee), mobility(hip), stability(lumbar spine), etc. This chain MUST re-occur for it to stay within its normal functionality.
So how does musculoskeletal injury occur then? Lets take the most common injury, lower back pain. The lumbar spine is a stability joint meaning either side there is a mobility joint. As soon as one of those mobility joints become a stability joint, through lack of mobility/flexibility (being in a sedentary job or simply overworking and not addressing mobility/flexibility work), these joint rolls switch to keep the kinetic chain pattern occurring. Thus the hips turn to stability, lumbar spine mobility and thoracic spine stability. Since the lumbar spine isn’t use to working in a large range or motion, it results in injury.
This is a very abbreviated view of how injuries happen. It comes from knowledge and experience with working with injury and rehabilitation of many people. The take home message for you is:
“You must address your underlying movement technique or quality prior to adding load, speed or power to a movement pattern.”
If you don’t and you keep adding more volume and intensity to a faulty movement pattern, you will most likely end up with an injury at some point. You must address key qualities such as mobility and stability of the joint EVERYDAY. Maintaining good joint kinematics means you can stay in the sport you love and become a better athlete or do more of what you really want to do.
If you’d like further information, please contact Vector Health through the contact us link or directly message Mitch Guthrie, Accredited Exercise Scientist at mitch@vectorhealth.stagingarea.net