Returning to Balance

It seems now the temperatures are beginning to fall and days becoming shorter, I’ve had many clients return to me complaining about chronic aches and pains which have developed over the spring and summer months. In many cases these clients are quite fit and keep active through the summer and are a little surprised they are experiencing these issues. Another common element would be each client tends to focus on one activity through the spring/summer months, be it golf/running/cycling/tennis/etc.

Although being physically active is one of the most important factors in maintaining ones health and well being, too much of a good thing can lead to problems.

Many clients, like myself, tend to focus heavily on a specific activity (for me it is definitely cycling). This can lead to imbalances in the relative strength of opposing muscles around the major joints in the body (hips and shoulders) causing the joint surface to be pulled out of alignment which will have a trickle down effect on smaller joints (knees/ankles, elbow/wrists) quite often leading to presentations such as chronic tendonitis and compressed nerve syndromes etc.

Often clients will ignore the early symptoms such as fatigue and stiffness putting it down simply to increased activities and force themselves to work through the discomfort and soon enough the awareness of the aches and pain disappears. The lack of awareness is not the same as a resolution though and often by ignoring the first signs of imbalances in the body, leads to more significant presentations as mentioned above.

All is not lost though, most such over use presentations can be reversed within six to twelve weeks with a bit of focused stretching followed by incorporating a few strengthening exercises to rebalance the muscle strength around affected joints.

As I’m a cyclist and the body’s position in cycling is pretty easy to visualize, I’ll use it as an example of how these muscle imbalances can develop. When cycling, the athlete is bent over at the waist with the arms reaching out in front of their chest to grasp the handles bars, in addition to this, because the athlete is bent at the waste the legs are not allowed to move into full extension during the ride. This means for the duration of the ride the pectoralis major muscles are in a relatively shortened position compared to the latismuss dorsi and mid trapezius muscles which are held in a lengthened/weakened position around the shoulder joint. In the pelvis the hip flexors are in a relatively shortened position compared with the glutes. Not only are there imbalances in the length of the muscles, imbalances in relative strength develop due to both the physical misalignment as well as focus of muscles being used to exert force through the pedals.

Also if you’re like me, you may not spend quite as much time focusing on lengthening the muscles held in a shortened position during exercise. This leads to chronic imbalances of the muscles around both the shoulders and pelvis, as the pecs pull too aggressively on the front of the shoulder joints the shoulders start to move in that direction (also leading the head to fall forward) where as in the pelvis, the hip flexors can become chronically short leading to a posterior pelvic tilt putting undue stress on the lower back. These gross misalignments can then lead to a plethora of other presentations causing pain in secondary areas.

But as the weather begins to get cool and the days start to shorten, less time is often spent in the spring/summer activities. Already, there are fewer and fewer of the cycling club members out on the regular weekly training rides and so I’ll start to refocus my attention to other activities. As I’m aware of how my cycling has affected my muscles, I’m specifically looking for activities that will help me rebalance my body.

I’ve already incorporated the stretching into my morning routine as I’m still up quite early but now it’s too dark to cycle safely. This gives me lots of time to stretch out my pecs/biceps/hip flexors etc. To help realign my pelvis I’ve committed to more walking, focusing on proper gait in order to strengthen my glutes in a more balanced way. Next for me is starting to work on my exercise ball with a focus on strengthening my back so I have the strength to pull my shoulders back into proper alignment.

This is the same balanced approach I suggest to all my clients. First look at the physical demands placed on your body by the given activity(ies) you enjoy, then figure out what muscles have been over used and begin stretching them out again. Secondly, begin to focus on those muscles that may have become comparatively weak with those same activities.

If you have any questions about how to work though any presentations you may have developed feel free to contact me.