How to Reduce the Risk of Serious Musculoskeletal Injury
In his previous articles Simon Wellsted has talked about the key concepts of injury being caused by often invisible compensations which, if left unattended, can lead to serious injury or pain at some point in the future.
The good news is that it is absolutely possible to search for these compensations and correct them before they turn into something painful or cause an injury that stops you doing your regular daily activities.
One fundamental issue however is that many people do not think about seeing a health professional until after an injury happens, often thinking that they do not need to seek preventative help if they are not already injured or in pain.
The reality is that the majority of us have hidden compensations that we are totally unaware of, and the process of keeping our bodies in tip-top condition to significantly lower the risk of pain or injury is very simple indeed. Prevention is better than cure.
Biomechanics Coaches, Biomechanics Trainers or IMoveFreely Instructors are specifically trained and qualified to screen for hidden compensations and provide very simple programmes to correct them.
Biomechanics Coaches™ have undertaken a comprehensive, fully recognised and accredited Diploma in Intrinsic Biomechanics; trained and tested to perform Full Body (Joint, Muscle and Nerve) Screens for hidden compensations, understand the biomechanical correlations (what affects what and why) and prescribe comprehensive Corrective Programmes.
Biomechanics Trainers™ have undertaken a fully recognised and accredited Continual Professional Development qualification to perform a subset of the full body screens and the associated exercise prescription programme. The screens learned identify and resolve the most commonly seen causes and correlations in compensation injury.
IMoveFreely Instructors™ have been trained in integrating a subset of the screens and the corrective exercises into Group Exercise Classes.
Whether you consult a qualified Biomechanics Coach or Biomechanics Trainer for a 1-2-1 session, or go to a Group Exercise class run by a qualified IMoveFreely Instructor, you will be giving yourself the best possible chance of staying fit, healthy and injury free. 
Consider somebody who sustains a serious non-contact knee injury such as an Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) rupture. They may go through surgery then rehabilitation with a physiotherapist and all may look fine but has the root cause of the ACL injury been found?
The initial ACL injury could have been caused by a problem elsewhere within their body. A problem with their pelvis, an issue with their shoulder or spinal or neural immobility somewhere else in the body could have been the root cause of the problem.
Unfortunately these relationships are rarely checked. The injured knee appears to be better after surgery and treatment so that's fine, isn't it? Yet unless the underlying cause is found and resolved there is a strong likelihood of the problem returning in the future - and probably worse than before.
If you go to a gym or attend a Pilates, Yoga or Circuit class on a regular basis can you be sure that the exercises that you are performing are not causing or exacerbating compensations throughout your body? If your PT or Instructor is a qualified Biomechanics Coach, Biomechanics Trainer or IMoveFreely Group Exercise Instructor, then the answer is yes.
A Biomechanics Coach can sort out many issues; quickly, simply and effectively, and most importantly, teach you to keep them like that.
"I know, from working with very many clients that they report learning more than ever before about how their bodies work, how their job and lifestyles influence how their bodies work, how injury can happen, what to look out for and what to do (and what not to do) about it. My principal objective throughout this series of articles has been to raise awareness of how and why non-contact injury happens and what can be done to reduce the likelihood of such injury occurring because in my experience, these injuries can be life changing.Knowledge and understanding is power.
Remember, well over 90% of injury is non-contac - it involves no one else and no external trauma. This means that well over 90% of injury is caused by something going on inside your body. This is an amazing statistic, and one that I am passionate about reducing. If I can stop just one person sustaining a serious ACL knee injury or a lower back injury then I consider that to be a major success. If you have learned something new from these articles then I have achieved my objective."
Simon Wellsted MISRM, MSTO MBCA
For more information visit www.unitybodymot.org or contact Simon on 07836 348164