Sport & Injuries
By its very nature, exercise and sport can cause injuries. Whatever thaose 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.
When a bone is broken, it will initially need to be x-rayed or scanned and your medical doctor will decide on a course of action that may be splinting, an open surgical reduction or no action at all.
But the trauma that caused the break is not confined to the broken bone - that just the bit that snapped! For that reason it gets all the attention, while other parts remain un-attended.
Every bit of tissue in anyway connected to the site of the fracture - and that is the whole body, since the body is one functional unit - will be severely strained and the muscles and fascia will be traumatised too - in spasm and contracted. That contraction may be so strong that the overall body becomes inefficient and unbalanced. Your fatigue can become disabling itself.
A fractured toe, foot or leg will have mechanical consequences throughout the body, such as ankle derangement and lower limb congestion. It will unbalance the pelvis which contains the centre of gravity of the body, so the whole body will be skewed. A fractured wrist, arm or elbow will directly pull on the upper ribs and neck. A fractured rib will restrict your lung function and breathing. An accident, such as a fall, will also have repercussions throughout the body. It is simply unavoidable.
Its exactly like driving a car with unbalanced wheels or a flat tyre - it is hard to steer, uses more fuel, and it damages the whole car the more you drive it.
So how can we help? We start at the base and move up, releasing the area around the fracture (although not the fracture itself), and then we follow the strain and tenderness upwards. By releasing the strains, and reducing the pain and tenderness, the blood supply, drainage and lymph flows more freely, and a normal fluid efficiency can be achieved.
If the contractile strain is particularly bad around the site of the fracture, keeping the bone ends separated, there is likely to be issues of non-union of the fracture. We have found that acupuncture can assist the union of the fracture and the reduction of the strain, pain and tenderness, so we may send you over to see Tanya Newton for directed acupuncture after the first session with an osteopath or chiropractor.
We are also happy to procure for you a knee scooter or an air boot for a fraction of the cost from other sources.