ACL tear or sprain?
I was asked to answer some questions regarding ACL tears in sports by the people at Coachbase. Below is part 1, which is some knee anatomy review, symptoms and initial treatment.
Enjoy 🙂
Category: Chiropractor
Categories
Happy Holidays!
Stay Healthy!
Thank you everyone for your continued support. Keep your body and mind happy and healthy during this holiday season! All the best to you and your families.
Champion Athlete and his Chiropractor
UFC lightweight champion (Jiu Jitsu, Muay Thai, MMA) athlete,
Anthony “Showtime” Pettis, was able to defend his title for the first time last Saturday night. Anthony was experiencing pinching in his back and buttock with kicking. “Showtime” is known for his kickboxing.
Visiting a Chiropractor allowed him some relief and improvement and allowed him to compete to his full potential.
Do you have problems with your hip or back flexibility in your sport, activity or everyday life? Add a Chiropractor to your healthcare team and improve your health and functioning.
Congrats Champ!
What is the best or most proper posture?
Patients, especially office workers and students, always ask me, what is the most proper posture for sitting? I will start off by stating there is no one posture that you should be holding constantly for long periods of time. The human body is made to move and humans should be changing positions semi-frequently by having microbreaks. Depending on your job and setup will dictate the frequency and duration of your microbreak position change.
How does your sitting position effect the spine?
Sitting puts more stress on the anatomy of your lumbar spine (lower back). Varying your posture will change the spinal load on the passive structures (bone, ligament, disc). The sitting position with the most spinal load occurs with a flexed lower back and forward body posture.
Tips for easier sitting
| Try to sit on your ischial bones or “sits” bones, instead of sitting on your sacrum (lower spine). People who suffer from lower back and neck pain will benefit from this type of sitting. Sitting on your ischial bones will keep you in a more upright posture and will keep you on your cushy bottom rather than the boney part of your back. Using a lumbar roll, pillow or rolled up towel behind your back will remind you to sit upright and maintain a relaxed, neutral spine. |
Sitting more upright will also reduce your forward head posture. Holding prolonged forward head posture can cause headaches and a stiff tight neck. This is a good case where treating away from the site of pain can help reduce symptoms.
What can a Chiropractor do for posture?
If you tend to hold poor postures during your daily life or have pain in your lower back, mid back or neck, go and see a chiropractor. Chiropractors can diagnose which segments are problematic before the pain begins, or decrease pain and improve functioning if a problem arises.
-if you would like get a copy of some of the research articles used, do not hesitate to contact me 🙂 –
Disclaimer: Remember that any information on this blog should not be a substitute to your healthcare professionals examination. I have not examined you; therefore, the above should not serve as medical advice. Research is also changing constantly and some information may change at a later date due to new available science.
Is Stretching Safe?
Many personal trainers, coaches and manual therapists give static stretching programs to their clients as a way increase range of motion, decrease pain and improve performance.
Stretching can be either beneficial or detrimental to one’s health and performance depending on when and how it is prescribed. Stretching prescriptions also differ between practitioners.
How do injuries occur?
Injuries that occur are most likely the result from the tissues such as muscle and tendons, inability to absorb forces required of them. Injuries most usually occur within the normal range of motion and during eccentric (lengthening a muscle under load) portion of a movement. Therefore, stretching tissues in order to increase their ability to bend or deform, will not allow them to be more resilient to injury.
Benefits of stretching
1) Injury prevention– Pre-exercise static stretching does not prevent injury and may actually cause injury due the decreased ability to produce force by the muscles and their absorption capability. Long term regular static stretching (>3 to 4 weeks) is beneficial and can improve force, jump height and speed.
2) Decreasing pain– stretching can have an analgesic effect by increasing pain tolerance. PNF (proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation) stretching has been shown to increase the range of motion (ROM) of both the stretched and unstretched limb. This indicates that there are effects on the brain itself.
3) Muscle Hypertrophy (muscle enlargement)- some studies have shown that there can be an increase in the muscles ability to contract (MVC), thus affecting the muscles ability to grow.
What happens during stretching?
ROM may improve in one of two ways: changing shape properties of the muscle cell AND/OR changing your stretch tolerance.
Acute, short term static stretching can have an immediate effect on ROM by changing the cell shape, but the effect is short lived and the tissues return to their normal resting length.
Long term stretching (>3 to 4 wks) allows change in ROM but no change in cell properties. Change is due to central nervous system (brain) stretch tolerance. Your brain allows for this. You are altering the stretch reflex. The stretch reflex is a safe guard mechanism at prevents over stretching. If your CNS decides you cannot control the ROM the stretch reflex is turned on and your ROM becomes limited.
To reduce potential injury during a particular activity, talk to your Chiropractor or health professional about how to expand and strengthen your ROM and reduce your change of injury.
-if you would like get a copy of some of the research articles used, do not hesitate to contact me 🙂 –
Disclaimer: Remember that any information on this blog should not be a substitute to your healthcare professionals examination. I have not examined you; therefore, the above should not serve as medical advice. Research is also changing constantly and some information may change at a later date due to new available science.