I had just finished my swimming training and was drying off and gathering my gear together, and I couldn’t help but listen in on two of the lady’s conversation next to me…yes I was eavesdropping!
One of the ladies had not been swimming for a while and was telling another lady that she had been injured. That she had been undergoing physiotherapy care for a chronic injury. The words that I distinctly remember were that her buttock muscles on one side were weak, they were not working as well as on the other side and that she had to build up the strength in those muscles. As she talked more she said that it must have been because of her limp that she had had for a while.
A fair enough explanation I thought as I got changed and headed off to the showers. I had heard it before, and probably would hear it a hundred times later.
As I walked off and thought about the session, trying to add up the number of laps and metres that I had swum. As I left the pool complex that conversation re-entered my head. I thought – how long does it take for the muscles to degenerate to such a degree; wouldn’t the limp cause an imbalance; and what makes the muscles work?
I dissected things. I became intrigued.
Our body works much like the Be -> Do -> Have principle, except it is along the lines (with nerves, the brain and skeletal muscle ) Think or Sense -> Act -> Result. For our muscle to act, our nervous system must tell it to work. Muscle is a ‘doing’ tissue. It needs to be told what to do by a higher power. This power is the brain. If a muscle can not ‘do’, there is a connection problem, and this will be neurological (brain or nerve) or at the nerve/ muscle connection.
Secondly, if the pelvis is twisted, we will notice that one of the buttocks is clumped, looking much larger than the other. This is not because one is more developed than the other, it is because the bones that the muscle is anchored onto is either (a) closer together (clumping) or (b) further away (flattening out and stretching). This I will often point out to patients as they are lying down. This then becomes an alignment issue with the bones and the joints.
As the pelvis twists, it can look like one of the muscles has wasted or over developed, depending upon how it it viewed. It will not function as well and can also feel weakened.
Maybe if there was a limp for such a long time, this will also effect the alignment of the hips, pelvis, spine and knees, therefore effecting how the muscle works and even how the brain works with balance and the vast information highway in the brain body connection. Muscle will also not rebuild without its proper neurological supply.
This lady needs to be adjusted, needs to have the pelvis and her spine realigned and her nerve supply to these muscles reinstated. This will allow true healing plus assist and fast track her rehabilitation.
People have become like sheep. Hearing the same explanation, expecting the same result. Listening to information, but not really digesting it. Information that they have heard before and not really questioned (look out for my next BLOG!). As Einstein said: Insanity is doing the same thing again and again, yet expecting a different result.
I drove back to my place with a smile. Yep, it was good being a black sheep.
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