The fact is: We all need to exercise. No, not just to stay “fit” or for the sake of our health. I meant that we have no chance NOT to move. Every day, our entire musculoskeletal system does a lot of work. From hanging out the washing, mowing the lawn, brushing our teeth to playing a musical instrument, throwing a ball in sport, rolling from side to side in bed, lifting a child, hanging, lifting, walking, pulling, pushing, jumping.
What do all these things have in common? Movement.
It can be unpleasant if our movement potential is inhibited in everyday life or in sport, for example due to pain or restricted movement. This can raise many questions.
Why does only the left side of my lower back hurt and not the right? Why does the tension come back even after professional treatment of the region? Why does my body feel good in a certain movement of my sport and not in another?
These questions often lead to immediate treatment of the painful region. But who looks at the connections in the body? After all, we don’t move in isolation in individual parts, but in the interplay of our entire musculoskeletal system from head to toe.
Pain or impaired performance sends the message that something is wrong, but the pain gives us no further clues as to its cause.
Is the painful side also the cause of the pain? This is often not the case. Or is the pain just a symptom of a larger problem? How can you find out?
What controls our movements?
The brain.
It is not the muscles that are directly responsible for controlling movement, but our brain. When we move, the brain, as a control center, gives “commands”, so to speak, to the muscles involved, which carry out the desired movement. This happens both with the simple task of lifting a finger and with a triple somersault.
Every movement, from simple eye movements to complex choreography, is controlled by the central nervous system. Image source: pexels.com
I like to compare our movement system to an orchestra led by a highly talented but lazy conductor.
How does an orchestra function if individual instruments are not played correctly? Image source: pexels.com
It is essential for an orchestra that the individual musicians can play their instrument to a high standard. In addition, the musicians must play their instrument in perfect sequence with the other musicians involved. If either one musician is not sufficiently proficient on his instrument or the interaction with the other musicians is not optimal, the symphony will suffer in quality. Imagine a very capable conductor of the orchestra, but one who is lazy and likes to hand over tasks and is quick to look for easy solutions. If one musician can’t play well enough, others have to compensate for this loss of quality. This may work in the short term, but in the long term this strategy will be noticeable and lead to overload problems.
Our movement system works according to the same principle – the brain is the highly talented but lazy conductor and the individual muscles with their specific tasks are the instruments we need for movement.
For complex movements in everyday life (symphony), it is therefore important that the individual movements involved (instrument) are also of high quality and function in optimal interaction with all the structures involved. However, the task of “movement” is more important to the brain than “high-quality” movement. This is the origin of compensation.
The body thus moves in movement patterns that are available in the brain (more precisely in the cerebellum) and become “ingrained”, so to speak, when a child learns to walk, for example. After each fall, the movement improves until the child finally learns to walk and this efficient, learned movement is stored in the cerebellum. However, deviating movement patterns that enable movement are also stored if an injury or overload has occurred. The body then tries to circumvent the resulting disruption and increasingly integrate other structures. The result is a compensation pattern.
Examples:
The greatest risk factor for an injury is a past injury. This is due, among other things, to altered neuronal movement control. Image source: fotalia.com, ©lassedesignen
- InjuriesWhen you were a teenager, you injured your right knee while playing. This injury caused your body to form a compensatory posture (replacement movement pattern) that shifted your body weight from your injured right leg to your left leg so that you could continue to do the activities that you demanded of your body (running, jumping, playing, etc.). Today, 15 years later, this compensation pattern is still present and while you are training for your first half marathon, you are still carrying more of your body weight on your left side and have been wondering for some time why the right side of your shoulder/neck area is constantly sore and tense much more quickly. You loosen up and treat the neck pain accordingly, but the problems come back. Probably no one has ever looked at the compensation caused by the injury to your knee 15 years ago?
- Visual or vestibular deficitsAs an athlete, neuromuscular stability, i.e. the ability to stabilize joints against external forces, is crucial for peak performance and the reduction of injuries. However, this stabilization ability is completely specific. As soon as a head (or eye) movement changes, the input to the brain also changes. This means that an athlete can be totally stable and strong in a “standard” strength training exercise, but not when he moves his head. How do you analyze these deficits and how do you train them to suit the individual? There is a huge lack of training here for almost every professional athlete.
Within complex sporting activities, it is essential that the brain classifies as many stimuli as possible as predictable and safe. Source: pexels.com
- One-sided postureYou work several hours a day in a seated position and drive to work. A neuromuscular weakness of the gluteal muscles is stored in your cerebellum due to the permanent posture. When you move, it becomes more difficult for your body to engage key muscles in your hips each time you sit. You develop a compensatory pattern in which the calf muscles are increasingly activated to compensate for the loss of stability in the hip. You develop calf cramps that do not go away despite taking magnesium. You develop plantar fasciitis (inflammation of the flexor tendons in the sole of the foot) and possibly also back pain. You are treated intensively with manual therapy and pain injections. Have the connections between your hip muscles and the calf / foot / back problems ever been checked?
Varied, complex movement in everyday life is of immense importance. Monotonous movements or one-sided postures lead to compensation patterns in the musculoskeletal system. Image source: pexels.com
- OverloadA mother only holds her child on one side of her hip for a long time during growth. Years later, she develops pain in her thigh on exactly this side of her body. She is diagnosed with bursitis trochantericae, an inflammation of the large rolling hill of the thigh. She then receives massage, pain management and insoles for her feet, but these measures only provide short-term relief. Has anyone taught her to shift her weight back onto the opposite leg?
- Sport-specific training: A sprinter trains his knee lift (lifting the swing leg from the hip) more often with his toes pulled up in order to use the front muscle chains more effectively. However, due to the high training frequency and the one-dimensionality of the training, the movement pattern becomes ingrained so that the brain can only control the flexion from the hip properly when the toes are tucked. The dependence of the hip flexor muscles on the equilateral toe extensor muscles has the effect that the athlete develops instabilities in the trunk that are primarily neuronally based. How can athletes train this neural circuitry in such a way that it helps them in their sport without increasing the risk of injury?
Compensation patterns are an essential topic, especially in high-performance sport. Not every compensatory movement is bad per se. It is crucial to find out when which compensation patterns cause the athlete more risk of injury than they are beneficial for their sport. Image source: pexels.com
- Chronic stressYour job demands more work from you than you are actually comfortable with. As a result, you are neglecting valuable time for your personal hobbies and also for your family. The increasing pressure is also noticeable in your mental mood. You feel trapped, but don’t want to give up. You start to grit your teeth in stressful situations, even at night. Your body stores up this energy, the muscles of your jaw joint are constantly on high tension. You get tension headaches that cannot be relieved by the usual means. Even after treatment by a jaw specialist, the tension does not go away. Even your temporomandibular joint can develop overcompensation, which can be identified using special techniques.
Scars have a significant influence on the nervous system and movement control, as the “input” of the skin is disturbed. Image source: fotalia.com, ©Artem Furman
- OperationYou have had your appendix removed. While the wound heals, the control of the abdominal muscles is weakened. Your body tries to compensate for this loss of stability in the abdominal cavity by compressing your lumbar spine. Years later, this compensation pattern manifests itself in pain that does not allow complete relief after conventional treatment. Has anyone checked so far whether the scar from the appendectomy has affected movement control?
If you notice that your performance is impaired (whether in sport or in everyday life), you cannot completely get rid of your complaints or you repeatedly injure yourself, assume that incorrect movement patterns are stored in your brain.
How can I help?
With the help of neuro-based tests, I am able to uncover compensation patterns in the form of neuromuscular imbalances. The focus is not only on a weakened or overloaded structure, but also on the movement control in the brain and thus the interaction of the respective structure with the entire musculoskeletal system.
With this approach, you will stop chasing symptoms and start looking for causes.
The faulty movement patterns can sometimes be corrected very quickly, depending on how complicated the compensations are in relation to other structures in the body. For optimal “memorization” of new movement patterns, I will show you specific, individual exercises that can be carried out at home or within the current training process and thus enable the best possible course of treatment.
Think of the mother who carries her child on one side for years; the musician who plays his instrument in one and the same position for years. The athlete who trains on one side or has increased problems with one side of their body. The bus driver who has severe tension in his neck after a concussion. The tennis player whose swing was never the same again after an appendectomy.
How does a unit work?
I take the time to look at your movement and injury history as well as current issues. I then specifically analyze your movements, from simple joint movements to complex whole-body movements. I use neurological and functional tests to check the range of motion and neuromuscular function of your musculoskeletal system. Once we have found out together how your brain communicates with the rest of your movement system, I use manual loosening techniques as well as mobilization and activation exercises and use precise coaching to show you targeted exercises and movements that can be integrated into everyday life or into the training process and adapted to your abilities and needs.
Don’t start with the symptoms, they are just a reaction.
Start rethinking.
Have your movement quality checked.
“The purest form of madness is to leave everything as it is and still hope that something will change.” – Albert Einstein
