Happy Monday and Happy Spring!  With Spring in the air, a lot of you are “springing into fitness”!  Which is GREAT!  The reality is that people exercise less during the winter.  According to a recent study, those who report exercising for at least 30 minutes three or more days a week drops from October through February each year!  It’s great to get back into the swing of things if you’ve taken a little hibernation, but it’s important to proceed with caution, or else injuries can occur.

You don’t usually find me talking much about rehab and exercise in my blogs, but this week it’s important to mention the power of the adaptive range.

When you aren’t training, its efficiency in recruiting motor units decreases, and you lose function and strength not from decreased muscle mass or fitness, but the inability to transmit those impulses. 

We all have what is called an “adaptive range“.  Which is a function of function.  This is a range of optimal neuromuscular function.  And truthfully we all are different!  Different patients require difference levels of adaptive performance.

For instance, some athletes can go through rigorous exercise, or brutal games without injuries, and some people have a sporadic injury walking down the stairs.  Why is that?  It’s the level of adaptive range.  When our nervous system is AWAKE, and firing to the muscles appropriately, they can ADAPT to the instances at hand, or when something sudden comes. Pretty simple.  When our nervous system isn’t awake, it won’t be able to react.

Which brings me to my next point.  Injury is a continuum, NOT an event!
When we start straying from that adaptive range, injuries occur.  And it’s not from just walking down the stairs, it’s a continuum of events that occurs.   See the diagram below.

As you can see we don’t just go from optimum performance to tissue failure.  It’s a process.  That is why when individuals say, oh I “bent down to grab something and my back went out”.  It’s not bending over that made your back go out, its a continuum.  Say, not getting care for months, or being in a really bad posture consistently, or sitting all day and then working out really hard.  Things don’t just “happen”.

The good thing is there is a way for everyone to increase their adaptive range!  Yes, you might have guessed it…. Chiropractic care!  Specifically chiropractic care that focuses on muscle testing.  By specific kinesiology muscle testing, you can tell which muscles are turned on and shut off by the nervous system.  This is really specific in showing deficiences which is where injuries can occur.  If a muscle is weak (meaning the nerve going to the muscle is not doing its job properly), then it is prone to be injured.

Muscles can be weak and turned off simply from your body just not being in alignment.  That’s why it’s important to get regular care.  Especially if you work out and work out often.  We are meant to be moving beings, but our body does need care, and when the body is out of alignment, our nervous system can’t get its messages out to the rest of our body efficiently.  Basically put, our muscles are dumb.  They only fire when they are told.  And they are ONLY told what to do from the brain and nervous system.  So, if you are out of alignment, your brain and nervous system aren’t working properly, which ding ding ding….. muscles don’t react.

Here are a couple tips:

1. Ease back into training.  Give your body time to readapt, and make sure your nervous system is functioning well before starting to go right back at it.  Slowly ramp up the load, intensity and volume of your workouts.  Less injury also means your more likely to stick with a program!

2. Don’t exercise in pain.  It’s not about no pain no gain here.  Pain is how your body tells you that something isn’t right, unless it is just normal muscle soreness.  If you are in serious pain, don’t feel guilty about taking a day or two off, and getting your body tuned up!  Or even getting tuned up(chiropractic) and having a massage with essential oils or a oils tub soak! Taking a couple of days off is better than a few months off, which is what I typically see with injuries in my office.  The sooner you get in, the BETTER!

3.  The biggest factor is consistency.  You can’t complete the next workout if your muscles are too sore to function, you are suffering form CNS overtraining, or nursing an injury.  Be cognizant of your pain.

4.  Boosting your adaptive range takes time.  It’s not a race.  But, by getting regular care, testing your muscles adaptive ranges, and making sure the nerves are firing, you will get there.  AND you won’t have to worry about certain movements or activities possibly causing you to have an injury.

Our bodies are awesome at adapting.  That being said, they can’t ADAPT for forever with improper firing.  Remember it’s a continuum.  So, make sure as you are getting back into the rhythm of working out, or increasing your workouts as an athlete, that you get specific care to make sure you stay healthy and injury free!

If you didn’t go to the dentist all your life, would you expect healthy teeth?  NO…. Don’t expect healthy muscles, connective tissue, and nervous system without getting regular chiropractic care.

LASTLY!  DUE TO CIRCUMSTANCES, I WILL NO LONGER BE SEEING PATIENTS IN MY SF OFFICE.  MY LAST DAY IN SF TREATING PATIENTS IS APRIL 17th. IF YOU ARE A PATIENT OF DR. CONGDON’S, SHE IS CONTINUING IN SF. I WILL CONTINUE TO SEE PATIENTS IN MY LOS GATOS OFFICE.  THANKS FOR YOUR UNDERSTANDING, AND BEING THE BEST PATIENTS!