Are Muscle Compensations Helping Or Hurting You?

Rehabilitation

Are Muscle Compensations Helping Or Hurting You?
- June 1 2021

Sometimes when we are not fully aware, physical compensations start to alter our anatomy and occasionally even our physiology. Our bodies are EXTREMELY good at adapting to imbalances that we are often not even conscious of how subtle the changes are! We may be using entirely different muscles and also not using the correct muscles in the right order to perform our activities of daily living.

Muscle compensations and body asymmetries are not always a bad thing though! In fact, our body is designed to have redundancies so that when there are problems our muscles can adapt and allow us to continue to function normally. This is why there are athletes out there with amputations who can still perform at exceptionally high levels. In fact, Usain Bolt has a scoliosis and leg length discrepancy and is still considered the fastest human who ever lived! If he become overly fixated on correcting asymmetries it is possible he may have never earned that title. Why fix what isn't broken?

There are times however that detrimental compensations arise from an injury.
So how do we detect these negative changes, and how do we address them to prevent long term strain and possible further injury & pain?

Functional testing!

These are tests of very specific movements designed to be highly sensitive to changes in our regular movement patterns.

If you’ve ever tried any of these tests yourself, it is likely you were surprised by the findings. "What do you mean I didn't keep my body straight! It felt like I did the movement you asked me to do just fine in the moment!"

Except you didn’t! Your body did it the best way it could, but it wasn’t by using the right muscles for the right movements any more. This type of negative compensation needs to be discovered early and corrected quickly - before you end up with tired & painful muscles that has been overused & abused!

Keep your body happy by becoming aware of movement impairments that can be corrected quickly and easily before chronic pain & disability start to change your day. A registered kinesiologist can help you identify problematic compensations and design you a specialized program to effectively remedy the problem.

Don't delay, you should see a kinesiologist today!

Looking To Rehab A Nagging Injury? We Can Help You!

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