Fit For Lax - Injury
Submitted by walax on Tue, 2006-05-09 20:49.
Features
Kinetic Chain Breakdowns (Injury)
This weeks article will contain the basis of everything we will discuss in the next year. I would suggest reading it more than once so that you understand the concepts VERY WELL. Even if it is hard to understand at first keep reading this will all make sense in the end. The first step in avoiding injuries is assessing where they come from. A good percentage of the time injuries do not just occur by chance, instead they are the result of years and years of bad workouts and neglect.
Our bodies are a complex system of nerves, joints and muscles moving and operating throughout our three dimensional world to produce movement. (This complex system is called the Kinetic Chain.) All the parts must be working properly in order for the system to function at a peak level. If not a breakdown of the system can occur. These breakdowns manifest themselves in our bodies as injuries. One of the things lacrosse players definitely want to avoid is injury. Most injuries do not just happen by chance. In fact a majority of injuries can be traced back to years of abuse and mishandling of our kinetic chain.
The Kinetic Chain works a lot like the lever and pulley system of a crane. Engineers specifically for lifting large objects high into the air have built cranes. Before they are built cranes arms and pulleys are measured out and calculated perfectly for the jobs they will perform. If the crane arm is to short the crane may fall over, the pulley too small and it may not be able to lift as much weight. There is a perfect point where the arm is just long enough and the pulley big enough that the crane can lift weight and produce forces far above what they would be able to do without these precise calculations. Our muscles and bones use these same principles when producing movement. If they are off even just a little than breakdowns (injury) will occur. Let’s take a closer look at the process in which these breakdowns of the Kinetic chain occur.
We will use the bench press as an example. Imagine if you will going into the gym every Monday and “hitting the BENCH”. Unfortunately this is all too common. For some reason we think the bench press is the greatest strength test in the world. Actually it really is not that great and in fact can do a lot of harm to your joints. In addition to joint problems think about it, when are you going to lie on your back and push weight into the air on the lacrosse field? It is not going to happen and if it does we should really talk about balance because you are being pushed around too much. But I digress, back to our example of Mr. Press. Every Monday he hits the press to show off for the ladies and look cool. But by Friday when Mr. Press is supposed to work out his back he is usually either too tired or too anxious to go out with his buddies and skips his back workout for the week. Besides he thinks that a big chest is going to lead him to the ladies not a big back. You have all probably seen this story before. But here is the point, when a muscle gets stronger it will shorten, that shortening would be like shortening the arm of our crane now we can produce less force. This is known as a Muscular Imbalance. Muscular Imbalances occur in the body when one muscle group is strengthened (becomes to short) or stretched (becomes too long) to often.
These Muscular Imbalances lead to what is known as Reciprocal Inhibition. Reciprocal Inhibition is the phenomenon in which one muscle is weakened because it’s opposing muscle is too tight. In our case this would be Mr. Press’s Back muscles. Because his chest is so tight and his back is overstretched both of his muscles will be weakened. All of our muscles have what is known as a length tension relationship. Basically this means that a muscle has a certain length and tension in which it will fire optimally. If that relationship is off then the muscles will be weakened. In our example both the chest and the back will be weakened. So now by just working out your chest too much not only is your back weaker, but your chest is weaker as well!
Remember I gave the example in our last article of the professional offensive lineman that was getting killed in strength/stability drills by our 110-pound female trainer? This was his problem; his chest was so tight from years of chest workouts that it could not get any stronger in its inhibited state. So we took him off of chest workout for 2 months, completely and stretched his chest, and worked his back out intensely. Afterwards we re tested his bench. Remember he had not touched a press for 2 months or any other chest workout for that matter, but his bench max still went up 50 pounds! By stretching his chest and tightening his back, the length tension relationship was corrected and his strength went up!
When the length tension relationship is off leading to reciprocal inhibition, the chest in Mr. Press is weaker. In order for him to continue to press those large amounts of weight, tiny muscles surrounding the chest have to kick in to take the load. These smaller muscles are called synergists. When these synergists take over it is called synergistic dominance. In our example the synergists of the chest would be the triceps (back of the arms), and Anterior deltoids (front of the shoulder). Because these synergists were never meant to take on this load they eventually get to strong and pull your joints just slightly our of alignment (know as Arthokinetic Inhibition). When that happens joints will often rub and wear down.
When the joints are compromised the body (Kinetic chain) has to find another way to produce the movement. Our bodies are smart and will bend and push in any way possible to do what you want them to. This is known as Relative flexibility. Please note that relative flexibility is not a positive thing. This is your body’s last resort. All of this leads to joint wear and injury. Remember that this is a process that occurs over time not over night. Let’s review those steps again:
- Muscular Imbalance – when a muscle is too long or too short due to faulty movement patterns.
- Reciprocal Inhibition – When a muscle is tight the opposing muscle will be overstretched, this impedes with a muscles length tension relationship.
- Synergistic Dominance – Smaller muscles kick in to help out the major muscle that is weaker.
- Arhokinetic Inhibition- due to the shortening of synergists joints become misaligned
- Relative Flexibility – the body finds the least possible path of resistance to do a movement pattern. This is not natural and not a good thing.
- Kinetic Chain Breakdowns – Injury… ouch!
To sum all of this up the slightest breakdown in the Kinetic Chain (Our bodies nerves, muscles bones and joints working together to produce movement.) will lead to injury. In the case of Mr. Press this injury would probably exhibit itself as a rotator cuff injury or and impingement. So how can you avoid injury? No, not by quitting the bench press. The good news is there is a way. The bad news is most of us are already out of whack and on our way to injury.
So how do we stop this cycle? It takes a whole new mindset. One has to be diligent in all areas of fitness including cardio, strength training and flexibility. Each of our bodies are different and exhibit there own set of challenges to overcome. In order to create the proper workout you have to know how to overcome your personal challenges and most important where they are. If you do you can create workouts that will make you stronger and faster by repairing the muscle imbalances that you face everyday. Take it from a 300-pound NFL lineman that will never go back to where he was. So where are you? To understand that, one must have an understanding of POSTURE.
Next week we will focus on posture, how to assess posture and how to fix ones postural deficiencies. Once you have an understanding of posture you will be miles ahead of the competition when creating workouts for yourself. You will also dramatically decrease the likelihood of kinetic chain breakdowns or injury.
