Freedom of movement
Are you moving poorly because you are in pain, or are you in pain because you are moving poorly?
Physiotherapists, like most medical specialists, are one of the health professionals you visit when something is broken. Take a minute to think about that – that makes us the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff which is not exactly a proactive approach to wellness.
Movement is the core of our human journey and is foundational to how we experience the world. It begins in the womb and continues in a highly predictable manner along a neurodevelopmental pathway – what we view as our primal movement software system (aka the central nervous system including the brain).
Our body is a sensory apparatus that has two main purposes, locomotion and manipulation. Both allow us to explore our environment. Information about our surroundings is sent to the brain of which we interpret and make decisions. It’s the ‘software’ (neurological system) that underpins the natural movement operating system and joints, ligaments, muscles and fascial system – the ‘hardware’ of the movement operating system.
Research shows us that the number one predictor of a future injury is a previous injury. The second is asymmetries or imbalances in the body. Based on that, we can reasonably assume that exercise and rehabilitation are unable to restore the original operating programme using traditional paradigms – that is, treating the broken part.
What we do know is this: you get an injury and a protective compensatory movement pattern follows. For example, you may change the way you walk following rolling an ankle. But failing to identify the faulty pattern or part involved in the first place is like replacing a tyre on a car and not recalibrating the system. You’re then left with hardware and software issues to resolve.
The very first movement pattern we learn outside of the womb is breathing. At Evolve, we often come across dysfunctional breathing patterns. When this foundation movement pattern becomes dysfunctional, the ripple effect to the system is extensive, including deactivating the ‘core’ – our mainframe and powerhouse. The software then detects instability and proceeds to steal it from somewhere else, like your upper back/ neck muscles. You come in describing a constant pain and tightness in your neck and seek a massage or acupuncture to feel better. This will only alleviate pain temporarily. Tight muscles are compensating for a lack of underlying function and so they are signalled by the software to go into lockdown and tighten. Recently, a patient had a painful locked neck when standing but was pain-free and free moving in testing while lying down. This demonstrates no problem with the hardware, rather in the software. With prescriptive reflexive core exercises, the neck pain had gone and full range motion while standing was regained.
To restore a movement pattern we need to honour the body’s software system and actually address the real underlying issues, the ‘why’, and not just the ‘what’. When you think of movement patterns as codes or algorithms you realise that we can’t rewrite movement patterns for you, but through accurate diagnosis and specific movement prescription we can provide the environment for you so that your system reboots itself.
At Evolve we are leading the industry by becoming the barrier before the edge of the cliff specialising in wellness with emphasis on functional movement systems which deliver faster and longer-lasting results. This is the first part in a contributor series from Gemma Monachino, director of Evolve Health, integrated health specialists providing physiotherapy, acupuncture, functional movement systems, yoga and pilates.