How Injured Muscles Compensate and How To Correct Them
When we are injured, our physical tissues are damaged and imparied. But this casualty is not the only victim! The unseen complication is also the coordination strategies of our muscle’s motor system . . . they are what make our muscles work efficiently and effectively. They usually aren’t able to recover with time. If you’re doing Physical Therapy to rehab, these exercise may not be able to actually retrain your muscles. The results are incomplete as you may only be exercising the compensation patterns!!
Compensation
Backing up a step, when we are injured, our muscles develop coping strategies – commonly called compensation. Although these strategies help us to function, they usually become habitual and we can’t stop them . . . because we aren’t conscious of them. So – – – we just keep using the compensation patterns, unconsciously. An example: after a foot injury, you might compensate by walking differently and that could travel all the way up to your hip and cause dysfunction and pain!
Substitution
Compensations are only a substitution or a work-a-round . . . they are NOT designed to be long term ways to operate efficiently! The longer we use these movement substitutions, the worse things get for us and the worse the body functions. This causes difficulty walking, reaching out, sitting and even lying down This will create pain and, most importantly, general irritation in the daily life and possibly necessitate difficult lifestyle changes!
Contact Info For Me
There’s more info below but contact me anytime for more details as well as a free initial consult: phone 831.818.6916; email: tpett.ortho.massage@gmail.com Website
How To Correct Muscle Compensations
What controls these muscle compensations? And, how can they be “dissolved” and corrected? The BRAIN controls subconscious, habitual muscle patterns!! When the brain senses a habitual muscle contraction, it stores that very pattern in a certain location. Thus – on we go . . . using this pattern for every movement until . . . until a specific bodywork technique is used. This technique is called Muscle Energy Technique [MET]. MET is also called PNF [proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation].
How MET Works
MET [Muscle Energy Technique] is a technique used by specialized manual therapists who have specific training. MET is actually easy to perform but not all PT’s, DO’s and massage therapists know how to do it. In fact, if your manual therapist doesn’t realize that your condition/injury has made your muscles inefficient, they will try to rehab you – – – only to use those less efficient muscle compensations. Using MET correctly, a therapist can access a “higher” part of the brain to: 1] dissolve the old habitual, less effective patterns; 2] re-establish better movement patterns. MET is a technique used OFTEN to help people get back to normal functioning!! see below for a perfect example!
An Example of How MET Works – A Client’s Testimonial
Rebecca is a surfer in Santa Cruz, Ca. She came to me because she wasn’t able to control her right ankle/leg while on her board. After she told me her past history, it became obvious that she had had extensive trauma to her right ankle earlier in her life. What happened back then was that her brain “minimalized” contact and function with that area. . . her ankle worked but was not optimalized [especially for muscle coordination of her sport]. I performed MET on her ankle for several sessions and gradually the “spastic” feeling she had gave way to better coordination and surfing! She was a happy camper but let her tell the story herself! Rebecca tpett.ortho.massage@gmail.com
