The Body Planner

An important message to beating injury…

The other day I got asked this question by one of my more recent personal training clients.

“Can we go over some back strengthening exercises?”

The member in question has never had any serious lower back problems but her lifestyle and activity choices prior to us starting always seemed to cause her some grief in the lower back region resulting in some aches and pains.

This situation (and pre-conceived solution) is a popular one in the people I see and many others around the world and I’ve solved them with the same solution time and time again but it was after watching a seminar by Mike Boyle that it became so glaringly obvious in the way it needs to be communicated to the masses.

“Anytime a muscle is injured look for a weak synergist”

(For those that are wondering what a synergist is – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synergist)

Mike actually got this quote from a therapist called Shirley Sharman and I have to agree with what he says that this is one of the smartest, short sentences that I have ever read and explains a problem so succinctly. As a Kinetic Chain Assessor this is the type of issue that I am always dealing with and explaining to my clients and athletes as to how we need to address it to get a long term solution instead of a short term one only.

The common problem in athletes and clients is that the focus is normally made on the point of origin of pain. If there is pain in the back, let’s look at the back, if there is pain in the knee, let’s look at the knee when many of these cases would be solved by looking at other problem areas like the glutes, hip complex and ankles for the respective conditions. This also explains why conditions repeat themselves because the issues with the synergists that have never been rectified continue to cause problems and result in more back pain, knee pain and so on.

This is very true for problems that result in the visit to a physician and what Mike calls the trauma model. If we have a real accident or injury to a knee like a ACL tear or a broken leg then the trauma model will apply a surgical solution which makes perfect sense. What doesn’t make sense is the application of the above model for what we call overuse injuries like a sore knee or back etc.

In such cases there has been no “car crash” effect as I like to call it and has simply come on over the weeks, months or even years and has resulted in some degree of pain which in the case of the back could be discomfort like my client or a bulging disc to give one example of a worst case scenario.

In these cases, most physicians will still use the trauma based model when to quote another therapist, Gray Cook - “Any time a joint is injured or painful, look above or below.”

From my experience in dealing with this gradual onset type overuse injuries/complaints, the vast majority of them will go away by dealing with the joints and muscles that surround the complaint. As Mike says, “A muscle very rarely gets hurt because it is weak. It gets hurt because it is doing someone else’s job”.

So in light of one of the most common problems in the world these days and as demonstrated by this recent client of mine, low back pain is not resolved by strengthening the lower back. This area is already doing a lot more work than it needs to be and instead look at the muscle and joint region surrounding the hip for starters.

In this specific case the front thing was tight and the back of the thigh and glutes were weak in comparison.

I would however go a step further than what Mike alluded to and assess other regions which is why the Kinetic Chain Assessment is so good and also look at ankle mobility and gait to name 2 other common causes of low back pain. (Mike may have meant this but his examples specifically looked at the joint directly below).

So whether your discomfort is a short term ache like my client above or something more serious but has come about via a gradual onset, remember these smart phrases…

“Anytime a muscle is injured look for a weak synergist”

“Any time a joint is injured or painful, look above or below.”

“A muscle very rarely gets hurt because it is weak. It gets hurt because it is doing someone else’s job”.