Chain Reaction Biomechanics. Part 11. Rehabilitation

In my last blog I gave an account of my recent allergic reaction to an antibiotic for an  apparent tooth infection and described how it affected the rest of my body. After 5 days without being able to swallow water or food, a timely intervention in A+E, which put me on an IV drip with a steroid to combat the swelling, I did start to recover. My body, which had shut down all but the most vital functions started slowly to switch them back on as I recovered. In this blog I want to start by  focussing briefly on how my body dealt with the disruption of unity during my allergic reaction and then moving on to functional rehabilitation in movement, as dysfunction is also a disruption of unity. An understanding of functional rehabilitation is as important for those involved in the movement industry  as  training and performance development.

Homeostasis or Unity. “Homeostasis is the state of steady internal chemical and physical conditions maintained by living systems.”

The body knows how to protect itself when attacked by illness, disease or injury, and deals with any disruption of unity by shutting down whatever function is unnecessary or damaged until it is able to or helped to regain unity or Homeostasis.

In my case, I slept almost continuously with the IV drips stabilising my body. My sleep was only interrupted by the examinations of various health professionals looking for the cause of the disunity.  They found it was an infected tonsil, not a tooth and cut out the infection, so that  three weeks later I have made an almost full functional recovery. In short, from lying in a prone inactive position, I am now able to perform a full range of tasks and complete my daily functional exercise routine.

The key was finding the cause of the disruption of unity and treating it so that recovery could begin. I had had what I thought was, and what was wrongly diagnosed by a Dentist as, a tooth problem which reoccurred periodically over almost two years, but turned out to be an infected tonsil. You can equate this with the the principles and strategies of AFS, which look to treat not just the symptoms but also to find the cause.  In bio motor function they also look to discover and treat the compensations your body adopts to maintain your purposeful activity, where there is dysfunction.

I’ve reached the end of my understanding of the medical field of allergic reactions, and will now move on to rehabilitation in human movement, where I understand a little more from my 12 year study with the Gray Institute .However, before doing so I can report that experts in the medical field, are expanding their knowledge around the connectivity of the body in fighting disruption of unity, caused by illness and disease. The evidence is  that it is more like a chain rather than a link reaction, as I understand it.

Functional rehabilitation in human movement

In the rest of this blog, I want to explore recovery and rehabilitation further, from a chain reaction perspective, before focussing again on prehab and safer performance gain in tennis in future blogs.

With my daughter’s permission, I want tell her story about her ongoing recovery from a low back problem. In brief, she had an acute episode of low back pain two years ago and the symptoms were relieved by traditional osteopathy. The incident which provoked the breakdown involved lifting an exceptional weight compounded by an uncommon movement direction. Her treatment at that time, concentrated on reducing pain and inflammation, which was good as far as it went.

Low back pain is a common complaint in tennis, caused or exacerbated by a disruption of unity between the upper and lower body in upright function.

My daughter, who is not a tennis player, experienced another episode of extreme pain and what felt like muscle spasm four weeks ago, and this time with no obvious cause. She was aware of the principles of function through my involvement, but like most she wanted and needed a quick fix, especially being a mother of two with all the pressures that brings. Painkillers from her doctor and a physio appointment, did little to help and she developed shooting pains which were wrongly attributed to the sciatic nerve.

I persuaded her to go to an osteopath who has trained with the Gray Institute and who treated the symptoms, and subsequently established the cause of the dysfunction. She has also started her on an effective exercise regime to unwind the compensations. In short, the body had enabled her to continue to move by taking the route of least resistance and establishing movement compensations in the chain.

The cause was a misalignment at the right side of the  sacroiliac joint resulting from a difficult pregnancy. The misalignment created the need for compensations in the chain, which over two and a half years were establishing a chronic condition  to cope with this dysfunction. Her propensity, as with most mothers, to carry toddlers on her hip added to the problem.

I think you  understand and don’t need any more detail to grasp the point I’m making. Incidentally, her doctor referred her to an inexperienced physio who did little or nothing and sent her away saying she needed to do more exercise and it didn’t matter which ones as they will all help.  He added choose ones you like as that will probably mean you will continue to do them.

Fortunately she now knows better and is more than willing to travel the distance and pay for authentic treatment, with a functionally trained osteopath  at the Kinesis clinic in Guildford.

Her qualified osteopath had also completed a Fellowship of Applied Functional Science at the world famous Gray Institute in Michigan, USA, where she developed her expertise as a Movement Specialist.

It is clear that the body is designed to work as a chain reaction and has abundant capability to achieve tasks, while protecting itself with compensations, where there is dysfunction. These compensations become chronic restrictions which will suffice until the load and movement requirements exceed it’s capability and something has to give. Repairing tissue damage to relief symptoms  becomes a shorter and shorter term fix before the next breakdown or as is most often the case, an impaired range of motion occurs which you consider inevitable and accept as your norm.

Ask yourself whether it’s worth the time and expense to find your true functional norm?

Functional rehabilitation is individualized and there is little point in me suggesting any routines for particular dysfunctions, or any general dysfunctions from our lifestyles.  However you can look at the three big rocks in the chain reaction of human movement to see how the way we live, might have affected you.

• The Feet. Podiatrists report that 70% of us have foot dysfunction.
• The Hips. Replacement surgery seems the way to treat our sedentary lifestyles.
• The Shoulders. Surgery to correct restricted range of overhead motion or activity that avoids it like the serve in Padel and Pickleball.

My ambition is to help people understand a little about common dysfunctions and a lot about the potential outcomes of not addressing them. We live more and more sedentary lives and we are encouraged to buy chairs that are so comfortable that they will enable us to move better when out of them! Also shoes that you can put on without bending down, thereby depriving a lot of people of the only exercise for their glutes that they get.

Even those who have a fitness routine tend not to train in a way that will enhance performance with reduced injury risk, for their chosen activity. The least effective  fitness training for life and any purposeful activity is that which works you in one plane of motion seeking to strengthen links in the chain rather than strengthen the integrated chain.

There is enough proof of chain reaction in all three planes of motion out there and you have to wonder why your trainers and providers choose to use other more traditional methods, which don’t work with the proven design of the body, in training, performance development and rehab.

When looking for the truth of function let your watchword in all things become ‘Consider the Source’.

See 3DMAPS chain reaction training in all three planes of motion

Vaughan Ebrahim. LTA accredited Level 4.

Gray Institute, CAFS 2013, 3DMAPS 2017, FGS and FT 2023.