Injuries: Two Models of Treating Sports Injuries

On Injuries from Stadion Publishing

Injuries: Two Models of Treating Sports Injuries
by Thomas Kurz

Information on this Web page is for educational use only, and is not intended as medical advice.
Every attempt has been made for accuracy, but none is guaranteed.
If you have any serious health concerns, you should always check with your health care practitioner
before treating yourself or others.
Always consult a physician before beginning or changing any fitness program.

There are two models of treating a sports injury. One is based on
assumptions and statistics, and the other is based on the immediate
feedback.

First the assumptions and statistics. Assumptions such as: If the
physician doesn't see anything grossly abnormal, then all is normal;
a medication for fighting a symptom (such as an inflammation) will
cure an inflamed joint; masking a pain with a painkiller is all it
takes to regain normal function.

Statistics such as: A large percentage of patients show signs of improvement
after a given treatment (a pill or some physiotherapy modality), therefore
it will probably help you.

It can be summed up as “roll the dice and hope and pray.”

Typical advice from physicians practicing such a model of injury treatment
goes like this: The muscle hurts, therefore you should rest it and
take painkillers; the muscle is weak, therefore you should exercise
it; the joint is inflamed, therefore you should take an anti-inflammatory
medication; if the joint is still inflamed, take a stronger medication;
and so on.

The other way is based on specific muscle tests that reveal the cause
of dysfunction and suggest a treatment. (Muscles are tested because
every injury to the musculoskeletal system results in altered muscle
function, and without restoring normal function of the muscles, joints
cannot work normally.) Immediately after the treatment, the troublesome
muscles are tested again to see if more needs to be done, and if so,
what exactly. This is the model followed by specialists of Applied
Kinesiology, Active Release Techniques, Muscle Activation Techniques,
and Sports Chiropractic.

Such specialists use precise muscle tests (Applied Kinesiology tests)
to determine what is wrong and what has to be done to make it right.

AK muscle tests are based on those of Kendall and Kendall published
in 1949 (Muscles: Testing and Function; current edition: Kendall,
F. P., and E. K. Creary. 1983. Muscles: Testing and Function.
Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins).

While a patient's positioning and direction of movement are similar
in both types of tests, in AK tests the timing and therefore the purpose
are different. AK tests do not evaluate just the force a muscle can
produce but rather how a muscle is controlled by the nervous system
(facilitated or inhibited). One can say that tests developed by AK
and used by practitioners of such methods as MAT, ART, or Sports Chiropractic
evaluate muscle activation. That means these tests show whether
a muscle can be activated when needed or not, whether it works in
concert with other muscles or not. Practitioners test the muscles,
then, based on their knowledge of the neuromuscular system, they perform
treatment to restore normal function. They test again to see if the
treatment worked and repeat this procedure until the desired result
is obtained. (It may take more than one treatment session for the
correction to hold permanently.)

To learn how treatment methods based on precise testing work and why
I recommend specialists who test-treat-retest, read the forum posts
that follow.

Experiences of other athletes with Applied Kinesiology and Chiropractic
are described in these Stadion Forum posts:

http://www.stadion.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=749

http://www.stadion.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=44

http://www.stadion.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=43

http://www.stadion.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=62

Experiences with Muscle Activation Techniques are described in the
following Stadion Forum posts, which are best read in the order they
are listed:

http://www.stadion.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=1061&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=15#p4861

Something dawns. . . .
http://www.stadion.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=1061&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=75#p4960

But still the wrong doctor. . . .
http://www.stadion.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=1061&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=90#p5023

Finally!
http://www.stadion.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=1061&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=90#p5071

Many thanks to Stadion Forum members who decided to share their experiences, especially to Kit and CSta!

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Information on the injury prevention, diagnosis, and treatment provided on this site is for educational use only, and is not intended as medical advice. Every attempt has been made for accuracy, but none is guaranteed. If you have any serious health concerns, you should always check with your health care practitioner before treating yourself or others.

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