Pain and muscle imbalance

If you are in pain, the chances are some of your muscles are not working as they should. Be it over working or under working. And this brings me directly to the point. I always try to explain to my patients who are in pain, the analogy below:

This means that if you have a muscle over-working, which is normally the case for someone with low back pain, for example, then you will have muscles that aren't working as hard as they should be. The same can be said in reverse, for example; someone with knee pain, whereby a muscle is typically under working. I always say to my patients if we can bring the blue line up and the red line down so we have muscle balance, then the pain will get less. Imagine a small team wherever you work. Someone in that team doesn't perform as they should. You still have to get the job done, by the deadline your line manager has requested. Therefore in order for the remainder of the team to leave on time, and meet the deadline, they have to work harder! These people get tired, stressed and fatigue easier. The same can be said for the muscles of your body. Which is why, when I am assessing someone in pain, I not only try to work out what is causing the pain, I also try to establish what isn't working correctly, which has a knock on effect for that pain. Let's use the example of low back pain. The majority of people who report low back pain tend to have low back muscles, namely quadratus lumborum or the erector spinals over-working and they have tightened up. This is the red line. Not only do I suggest ways for my clients to loosen these muscles up with stretches, I continue to assess and establish what is under working, the blue line. The majority of the time, I tend to find weakened abdominals and gluteal muscles. I therefore suggest ways to strengthen these muscles up. I tend to use this for the majority of my assessments and it pays dividends. By bringing the musculoskeletal system back into alignment, my clients tend to get better and stay better. My reviews speak volumes about these results and very few of my clients need more than one appointment because I use this analogy.