Ever wonder why that unusual pesky knot will never go away or why your wrist keeps hurting whenever you type, or how about these ugly words flat feet, trigger finger, carpal tunnel syndrome, hammertoes, sciatica, plantar fasciitis.
Well, what would you say if I told you your muscles have the memory of things you can’t ever remember? For Example, some repetitive use memories would be, someone who does a lot of typing. The use of muscles in the arms typing at 75 wpm documents are using their muscles to excess and overuse them when the action is repetitive for a long period of time.
A number of things can occur, the muscles shorten, the muscle memory is lost and the muscle now thinks it is supposed to be short and tight. It thinks this is the “normal” shape that it should hang on to. In essence, the muscle forgets what it is like to be “normal” or an un-relaxed state. When this happens (oblivious to us) all the muscles pull and stretch at the rest of the arm making everything out of alignment, but it pulls at the sight where the tendon attaches thus resulting in tendonitis, tennis elbow, or golfers elbow.
Even though that person doing the typing has never done these sports in their life or how about when the hips and the rotators become overused, the piriformis becomes tight, we sometimes often call this sciatica.
We train our body to do several tasks that we are hardly aware of, like typing, driving, or eating. There are types of muscle memories called proprioception. This is the innervation between the brain and the muscle.
Another muscle memory might be an emotional memory. So how do we restore or return to “Normal” operation?
Well, let’s talk about stretching.
Blood circulation, I feel is the key!. Blood brings with it life, nutrients, vitamins, water, and oxygen to every place in the body. Blood is also one of the forms of toxins that are removed when someone has a repetitive use injury.
In an injury, the blood flow is like a kinked hose; water can get through, but not steady and not often enough to heal properly. This would also cause swelling, or as my instructors used to put it, inflammation is the collection of or the trapping of interstitial fluid.
During an injury, muscles tighten around the injury to help protect the injured sight and prevent further injury. Well as I said before the longer the muscles are tightened, the more possibility it will learn to stay in that formation. Then you have myofascial issues and scar tissue forms. As you know scar tissue will pull on all sides of the muscle adding more memory to an already overtaxed injury.
We as a therapist can help reduce scar tissue but cannot reverse it. But we must help the muscle do the opposite. We must stretch the muscles out with proprioception. If you combine stretching with compression or holding you can complete, reverse or even restore the muscles thinking.
I highly believe from my experience with my clients that proprioceptive stretching for groups of muscles held at a contraction for 20 seconds works wonders for my clients and me. But this is always done with the clients’ help and never to the point of cutting off circulation. There is no sense cutting off circulation by entrapping the nerves or stretching too far for too long. The blood will not flow; the muscle cannot relax and heal properly without blood and oxygen in order to stay alive.
This all has to be done with the client’s pain scope in mind. I have found the best stretch is done when the client does it with no pain at all. If you’re in severe pain, check with your Doctor or Chiropractor before doing any stretching.
Michael Bahr Level: Professional ID #:742661 Active: 10/25/2019 Expire: 10/24/2020 Member since 2005
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