You Can’t Outstrengthen Bad Movement

When injuries happen, we often think it is because an area is weak.  While that is not necessarily wrong, that is also not necessarily the only issue either. If it were purely a strength issue, we wouldn’t see as many non-contact and ‘overuse’ injuries happen in professional sports as we do. 

So, if it isn’t always a weakness issue, what is it? A few things come to my mind as the contributing factors: a timing issue between the deep stabilizer muscles and the overlying mover muscles, improper movement patterns placing abnormal forces on different areas, and weakness in the foundation of the body (aka, the feet). 

Poor timing 

When talking about timing with muscle firing patterns, the deep stabilizer muscles that surround the joints need to fire just before the overlying mover muscles. Those stabilizer muscles are what put the joint in a stable position so that joint is strong and protected as the overlying mover muscles are moving the area. If the stabilizer muscles fire late, the joint is not as stable and secure throughout the movement. While this can (and does) result in traumatic injury, more often this results in the joint ‘wear and tear’ or ‘degeneration’ that show up on x-rays. 

Now, I am sure you are wondering why this happens. Most often, because the timing element doesn’t get trained. We often don’t take the time to slow down movements when learning tasks in order to teach the stabilizers how to kick in first prior to moving. It is much more fun to just move and not think. When a weight is light or repetitions are low, the body can get away with moving however it wants to move. As the load and volume increases, the body can’t hold up as well, resulting in injury. 

Improper movement patterns 

The body is great at learning bad habits and compensations. Ultimately, just like you search for ways to make tasks in your daily life easier for yourself, your body does the same thing with movement. Your body finds the ‘path of least resistance’ and creates that habitual pattern, regardless if it is a way that is good for the body. 

It isn’t the only reason, but a big reason for these bad habits and compensations is due to mobility deficits. As a very general and simple example, when doing a squat if you don’t have good mobility in the hips and ankles, your low back and knees will compensate. Or for an overhead example, if you are lacking upper back mobility, when you reach overhead your shoulder will have to move in ways that put more stress on the muscles and joints in order to achieve the motion. 

Lacking a solid foundation 

The feet. I definitely can’t leave these out of the equation. The purpose of the foot is to give us a solid foundation to stand and function on, this includes walking and running. Just like a solid foundation of a building keeps the building strong, a solid foundation of the foot keeps the structure of the body strong. Unfortunately, many people are lacking the strength and control in the foot, both because it is not trained on a regular basis and also because the use of shoes and orthotics automatically weaken the foot. 

If the foot loses control, your body loses strength and control in the legs, hips, low back, and even into the upper back, shoulders, and arms. A great example I see often is with athletes strengthening their hips to correct the issue of the knees falling in during squats, but they are unsuccessful with their endeavor. This is because you can have the strongest hips in the world, but if you don’t have good control over your foot the knee will continue to fall inward. Translate that to running, if you don’t have good control when you are consciously thinking about the movement, you definitely won’t have good control when you have to do things quickly and without thought. 

I am not saying strength is not an important element, it definitely is, but it is not the only element to look at when we are looking at pain and injuries. If you have done the strengthening part and are not seeing results, I encourage you to begin exploring where else you might be lacking.