Kokova Magazine

Specialist Biomechanics & BodyMOT Coach Simon Wellsted joins us to bring you his Injury Prevention Series; a look at how we can prevent many of the injuries we sustain in everyday life.

Most musculoskeletal injuries don't "just happen". We all know that something out of the ordinary or unexpected can happen to us in sport (somebody tackling us badly in football or rugby or similar) but the truth is that well over 90% of musculoskeletal injury is non-contact, where nobody else is involved.

If over 90% of musculoskeletal injury is non-contact, what (or more importantly, who) IS involved? The answer is of course, "you are!" If there is nothing external causing your pain or injury then it must be something internal to you.

So, you are in the garden, doing some weeding, cutting the grass or moving some garden furniture around, or you are carrying a heavy bag, getting out of the car quickly or just turning over in bed and suddenly your back (or shoulder or knee) goes.

But, is it actually suddenly? These things don't just happen, they are the result of possibly years of compensations happening inside your body due to lifestyle, work and a multitude of other factors - causing your body to adapt or compensate.

Your brain is the best computer ever invented and nobody has managed to replicate it - yet. So, when these compensations (often minute, insignificant adaptations) happen, they occur invisibly to you and totally automatically - and will probably stay invisible to you and anyone looking at you for years. Driving, carrying heavy bags or children, sport, work or even diet all contribute to these compensations that eventually may result in something more significant or painful happening at some unknown point in the future.

Consider a hammer hitting the corner of a wooden table with a relatively low level of intensity, over and over and over again. Nothing is going to happen immediately but if exactly the same spot is hit repeatedly over a very long period of time, then eventually it is going to give way or break. That's what happens with your body with these types of injuries or pain.

Compensations cause your muscles, bones, joints, ligaments, tendons and nerves to adapt. And when this adaptation happens, these various components making up your musculoskeletal system are doing something different in a way they were not originally designed to work; hitting the corner of the table, over and over again.

This process is called over-use; low intensity, regular activities or actions that, over a long period of time, eventually reach a threshold that results in pain or injury.

Is where the hammer hitting and hence where the pain or injury ultimately occurs actually the root cause of the problem? In Simon's next article he will take a look at the answer to this question and explore more about compensation, its effects and what you can actually do about it.

Simon Wellsted MISRM, MSTO MBCA
Specialist Biomechanics Coach™ & BodyMOT Coach™
Injury Prevention and Back Pain Specialist

Mobile: 07836 348164
Email: simon@unitybodymot.org
Web: www.unitybodymot.org
Facebook: www.facebook.com/InjuryPrevention
Twitter: @unitysportthera