If you’ve got those nagging aches and pains that just don’t seem to go away, you’ve probably searched the internet, spoke with friends, or got some sort of advice on how to get rid of it. You might’ve even heard that low back pain could be caused by your hip, or knee pain could be caused by your ankles, or just in general the point of pain may not be the source. This can get very confusing and really frustrating, especially when you’re unsure of the right way to get rid of pain. Pain may not have musculoskeletal roots, so if it’s severe, it’s always a good idea to get it checked out by a physician.
The body is filled with several hundred bones and muscles, and it can be intimidating trying to figure out the cause of your issues. Many times, we chalk it up to simply not being strong enough, or in other words, a certain part of our body is weak. Our low back hurts so it must be weak. While, if you’ve sustained an injury, strengthening plays a part in rehab, it may not be the cause of pain. In fact, poor posture and movement can have a significant impact on injury resilience and when it gets out of whack, issues might ensue.
The simplest way of thinking about how your body is supposed to function is the Joint by Joint Concept, originally written about by Mike Boyle and Gray Cook. The concept is simple, the body functions by stacking stable joints above mobile joints from the foot through the head. In order to better understand why thinking of the body in this way is important, remember that if you can’t move how you’re supposed to, then you’re at a higher risk of injury. For example, in a normal squat, your actual knee joint should stay fairly still. It may track a little forward, but not more than a few inches. However, if you see a squat where the knees move inward towards each other, this isn’t normal knee movement. You don’t need to study biomechanics to make this observation; intuitively we know the knee mainly moves the leg in one plane. Now, a simple bodyweight squat with the knees caving in may not cause immediate damage, but consider if this person plays a sport with a lot of jumping or just plays volleyball at the beach one weekend and lands in this poor position….yikes! It’s not that this type of injury is caused by weak thighs, rather this person was unable to control their knees correctly, and this comes from having improper mobility and stability throughout the body.
Circling back to the joint by joint concept, you can see how helpful it is to have a system for understanding mobility and stability because both of these are crucial for proper movement and posture which is key for injury resilience:
Good Mobility + Good Stability = Good Movement = Injury Resilience
VS.
Bad Mobility + Bad Stability = Bad Movement…….Bad Movement + Load = Injury Risk
The human body is a system of mobile joints stacked on stable joints starting from the foot:
FOOT = STABLE
ANKLE = MOBILE
KNEE = STABLE
HIP = MOBILE
LOW BACK = STABLE
UPPER BACK = MOBILE
SHOULDER BLADE = STABLE
SHOULDER JOINT = MOBILE
ELBOW = STABLE
WRIST = MOBILE
The base of the foot is stable; it’s meant to keep you standing upright and balanced. Your ankle joint is mobile, it can move in many different directions and allows you to plant your feet in a variety of different ways for different movements. Then, the knee is stable, it doesn’t move in many directions. However, this pattern can break, and when it does, movement issues arise and injury risks increase because joints start working in ways they’re not intended. For example, your low back is meant to be stable, it’s not meant to be very flexible during movement, it stays still and the mobile joints of the hips and shoulder are meant to move. However, if your hips are tight and you still need to complete everyday movements that require hip mobility, your body will find a way. You won’t stop tying your shoes because you lack hip mobility (or maybe you will by starting to slip them on! But that’s besides the point), rather you’ll start using your low back to get some extra mobility to get down to tie your shoes. The same applies for deadlifting, if you lack the mobility to pull the bar from the ground by bending at the hips, you might look to gain the extra range from your low back. Then you’re not using joints how they’re meant to be used and putting stress in places it shouldn’t be.
The bottom line is, if you experiencing nagging aches and pains, this is your body’s way of saying something is a little off and needs to be corrected. Use the joint by joint concept to better understand how your body should function and start paying attention to tightness and instability in your body, then go after it!
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