Injury Prevention: Stop, Look and Listen
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity and I’m not sure about the former." – Albert Einstein
Throughout history, great discoveries have been met with resistance long before they were ever accepted. Today we accept that the world is round without the slightest doubt. Yet, if you asked anyone in the fifteenth century they would have told you that it was undoubtedly flat.
In an age where sports performance and medical professionals have come to rely heavily on high-tech equipment to decipher what is wrong with their athletes, we must understand that there is a big difference between knowing and understanding. While not designed to replace these screening and assessment procedures, one must recognize that you must first understand what is occurring within the body to produce the said ‘asymmetries’ before you can ever accurately treat an athlete. Even then, one should never assume that the obvious is true because the brain is constantly recalibrating 24/7 due to things like gravity and time.
Additionally, if a dysfunction is improperly assessed for long enough, the dysfunction can become worse and can result in significant injury to an athlete. Like a time bomb ticking ready to explode when the perfect storm of stress/trauma presents itself at the correct angle, amount of force, and time. For instance, when an athlete’s quadriceps tendon tears in a game when the player pushes off and changes direction in a basketball game.
Why should it surprise us that we can rely on the body’s own inner guidance to facilitate a positive response through the manual use of our hands? In my mind, this is healthcare in its most uncomplicated form. A collaborative effort between two people and then enabling the body to do what it was meant to do…recover and heal. Sometimes we are so caught up in the world of high tech ‘data’ that we forget what a highly skilled manual therapist can possess. They have an ability to assess dysfunction in ways that are just not possible with conventional medical screening equipment and their evaluations are a valuable adjuvant to any high tech medical data.
"First they will laugh… after that they will either deny or follow you." ― Kushiro Shoko
Whether working with patients who have undergone many surgeries and treatments that have physically changed their bodies or working with elite athletes, we are all human beings. Although not everyone might have a 100 million dollar contract, everyone’s human nervous system DOES work the same way. No exceptions.
Last time I checked, the brain is an incomparable guide if you understand and will take the time to carefully listen to it. And therein lies the rub…
