By its very nature, exercise and sport can cause injuries.
Whatever those injuries are, many practitioners consider that the cause of the injury, and the result of the injury, is muscle weakness - and what is needed is strengthening exercises. So the recommendation is exercise, exercise and more exercise to somehow enable repair and rehabilitation. It rarely works, and because physical therapy is often unhelpful it becomes expensive and onerous.
Weakness is not usually the central issue with an injury.
It may rhyme, but pain does NOT equal gain. Pain is your body's way of saying STOP. Using damaged tissue, that is, repetitive exercise therapy, will cause pain and in turn, cause more damage.
Pain and injury don’t primarily weaken muscles - they cause spasm and shortening of muscles, which in turn twist and compress associated joints. Then, naturally, the muscles can't work efficiently. Logically, strengthening exercises imposed on these tissues and joints can smaintain or even enhance the injury.
So, before an injury can be properly rehabilitated, the alignment and of the joints and associated soft tissues, like muscles tendons and fascia, must be normalised as much as is possible. Only then can damaged structures optimally heal.
At CSO we will take the time to offer you the attention painful, spasmed contracted tissue and joints need.
Using our own hands, not machines, we will traction, inhibit, stretch, wobble, manipulate and massage until mobility and adaptability emerge and the complex structure regains optimal alignment, thus allowing optimal healing.
Then the strengthening exercise therapy can commence.
