Can you relate to this meme? I know I started having, seemingly, silly injuries or recurring issues in my early thirties. And, from my professional experience, it is a common lament from clients. But why is this the case? Is there an answer? If so, can recurring injuries or pain from seemingly harmless causes be fixed? I believe many of these problems CAN be avoided! First, let me offer an explanation for the phenomenon.
Imagine, with me, a beautiful garden, lush and green. Beautiful flowers with radiant colors catching your eyes and drawing you deeper into its beauty. And there are no bugs bugging you while you enjoy the scene. It is a perfect place.
Now, imagine a prairie or grassland, maybe with a small stream running through. It is pretty in its own right, however there are holes in the ground that you fall into created by moles. This is a nice place, but it is not perfect.
Next, think about a desert. Hot, dry, arid. Sandy, but not the good kind of sand from the beach. Some people might think the scene looks pretty in a picture. No one wants to be in this place without having made significant preparations in order to consistently get food or water. If you found yourself here, you might be able to survive for a short amount of time but this is not a place to stay long-term.
Finally, at the edge of this desert is a steep cliff with nothing at the bottom except thorns, briars, and thistles. It reeks of death and decay because of the animals that could not escape. And, there is no color or beauty to behold. It is truly an insult to the senses; a place no one wants to be for any length of time.
Our development as humans follows a similar progression to the images above. We start as babies doing nothing movement wise. Over our first few years, we build our core strength to reach the next movement milestone: rolling, sitting up, crawling, standing, walking, running. Our movement pattern is perfect like that beautiful garden.
Unfortunately, it does not stay like that forever. Over time we move away from this pattern due to sustained postures (slouching in chairs, a particular work demand), injury (falls that break bones, car accidents), or laziness (finding ways to move to use a fewer number of muscles). If my daughter is the norm, then this process of moving away from perfect motion begins as early as age 4-5. I constantly catch her standing with her stomach and booty sticking out in opposite directions meaning she is not engaging her core stabilizing muscles to stand and, instead,just “hanging on her ligaments” (using only the bone structure and ligaments to maintain upright position – no muscle involvement). Basically, she is standing in a lazy manner without having previous injury to the back or core to explain the change. This example is similar to the prairie. The movement is sufficient to do everything you would want to do, but the movement pattern is not perfect.
A large number of people continue to move away from the ideal movement pattern as years go by and insults to the body occur. A broken leg may lead to a change in your gait that sticks with you long-term. A neck injury from a car accident may cause you to change how you sit at work. The new movement then forces other body tissues to pick up the slack or to compensate. The compensation usually will lead to a second change in movement, stress on different tissues, and the spiral away from perfect movement continues. This is the desert scene. You can survive and move here for a time, but it will not last long before you reach the cliff.
In this analogy, falling off the cliff is being in pain and often it is a sudden occurrence after picking up a pencil off the floor, or waking up with a stiff neck, or pain in the hip or back because you have compensated for an injury to your foot for years. Sometimes these are pains that come and go and seem to flare at the most inconvenient times and for the silliest reasons.
Most people live somewhere between the prairie and the cliff. Some live on the edge of the cliff and split time between clinging to the edge and falling over the edge completely.
Our medical system is happy to step in once you have fallen off the cliff into pain. We have medicines, surgeries, and therapies designed to target pain and help get rid of it. The system, however, only takes you to a point. Namely, putting you back up on the edge of the cliff and then says, “You are good to go! Let us know if you need help in the future!” Knowing full well that it is only a matter of time before you fall off the cliff again.
What if I told you there was a better way than living that cycle forever? What if I told you it was possible to move away from the cliff, through the desert, and back to the prairie, maybe even the garden! Movement patterns can improve if the underlying cause for the alteration is corrected.
At Redeem Physical Therapy, our mission is to come alongside people, find the areas in their movement patterns that are leading to pain and correct these issues, pulling you away from the cliff and decreasing your chances of pain in the future. Let us help you PREVENT injury. It is much better than waiting until you are in pain and then suffering while you jump through all the hoops in the healthcare system to get assistance.
Call us today for more information or schedule a screening assessment today!