The Body is Connected

By getyourfixpt Blog CrossFit Mobility Physical Therapy Wellness October 7, 2018

Are you frequently injured? Not necessarily weekly, but every several months and at least once a year?

Don’t think these multiple injuries are related? Think again! Many of the injuries we experience, even years apart, are somehow related.

There are several ways in which this happens.

Movement Patterns

The way in which we move matters. Our muscles and joints are made to work in a certain way. If you change how they function, pain develops or injuries happen.

Injuries from improper movement patterns can show up in many ways, including tendinitis, muscle pain, or joint pain. And issues will continue to show up if the underlying issue isn’t addressed.

Let’s use squatting as an example. Many people don’t know how to squat properly. When we don’t squat properly, over time this can translate into foot and ankle issues, knee issues, hip issues, back issues, or a combination of any of those. Many times, it will start with pain in one area and then pain will develop in another area; it is a downward spiral. Once the pain is addressed and resolves, if the squat pattern itself is not corrected, another injury will occur later.

Compensations

If you develop an injury, your body naturally compensates in order to both avoid/decrease pain as well as allow you to continue to move. These compensations cause different structures to be pulled or positioned in ways they were not designed to. As this continues over time, more areas throughout the body are pulled on abnormally as well, causing irritation, inflammation, and injury to another area in the body.

This can occur while injured, but also after an injury if joint mobility or tissue extensibility is not restored. This second issue relates to the previous topic of movement patterns. If proper motion is not restored in an area following an injury or surgery, our movement patterns will be impacted.

Scar tissue

Our bodies are an amazing interconnected system. Everything is connected in some way. We function on the basic tensegrity, or tension integrity, concept. Tensegrity describes a structural principle based on the use of isolated components in compression inside a net of continuous tension, in such a way that the compressed members do not touch each other and the prestressed tensioned members delineate the system spatially.

So how does tensegrity relate to the body exactly?

Scar tissue does not stretch. If we develop a significant amount of scar adhesions around an injury, it can cause restrictions, both at the location and away from the area.

Try this out for an example. Raise your arm up and pay attention to how your shirt moves. Then, grab part of the shirt with your hand near your waist and raise your arm up again. See the difference? That is similar to what occurs with scar tissue. It will restrict the local area and then change the extensibility of the tissues throughout the body as well.

Just because the scar tissue is in one specific area, does not mean that other areas are not impacted.

What now?

If this sounds like you, constantly injured, it is time to do something about it. Most likely all your injuries are related in some way. You need to find someone to get to the bottom of it and resolve it once and for all.

More questions about this? Comment below or email me at brianne@getyourfixpt.com.