Tag Archives: Stiffness

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Did This Happen When You Fell On Your Butt?

Elderly Health, Pain Relief, Performance, Strength, Uncategorized No Comments

Snowboarding season is upon us here in Colorado and I can’t tell you how many times I have treated these athletes for sacroiliac joint butt-landing ligament injuries. These ligament failures accompany sacroiliac joint subluxations (misalignments less than dislocations) with attendant pain, stiffness and weakness. Depending upon the patient’s age and general health, immediate, accurate diagnosis and treatment will re-align the sacroiliac joints and heal the ligaments for uncomplicated recovery.

On the other hand, most people with chronic low back-hip-pelvis-leg pain, stiffness and weakness have, at some time in the more distant past, fallen on their butts and experienced the same injuries. Due to the long-term wear and tear of these injuries, these cases are often complicated by more severe ligament laxities, inflammation, cartilage loss and the pain of degenerative osteoarthritis.

I recommend that you take care of your sacroiliac joint ligament injuries and their attendant joint subluxations quickly and effectively. If you are still symptomatic after undergoing reasonable treatment, seek another opinion from a sacroiliac joint injury expert. Left unattended, these injuries can make your life miserable.

boulderchiropracticclinic.com

How’s Your Baseline Fitness?

Exercise, General Chiropractic, Movement, Pain Relief, Performance, Strength No Comments

When performance of your activities of daily living are successful and within your ability to maintain good health, you have baseline fitness. Looking specifically at your joints, when you do your everyday lifting, bending, sitting, walking, running, pushing, pulling and throwing, do your joints remain stable? Are they already aligned or are they misaligned? If they are aligned, when you use them, do they remain aligned? How do you know if your joints are aligned in the first place? How do you know if you have healthy brain-to-nerve-to-muscle-to-joint feedback?

Of course you may come to see me and I’ll answer these questions for you. However, by using the following criteria, you should be able give yourself a fairly accurate assessment.

  1. Do you have joint aches or pains? When your joints miss-align, their state of abnormal mechanics cause them to grind and chafe, to become inflamed and they hurt.
  2. Do you have muscle aches or pains? When your joints miss-align, their associated nerve endings will report this to your brain. You brain will respond to this abnormal feedback by contracting certain muscles. Long-term muscle shortening strangles the muscular blood supply, cutting off the exchange of oxygen (anoxia) and nutrients with carbon dioxide and other waste products. Contracted, oxygen-deprived, waste-saturated muscles hurt.
  3. Are your joints stiff? Contracted muscles stiffen your joints.
  4. Are your muscles weak? Poor neuromuscular control of your joints weakens your muscles.

The stability your joints depends upon their ability to function with strength, flexibility and comfort. Your joint-mover and joint-stabilizer muscles must be reporting and receiving normal information to and from your brain. While your joint mover-muscles remain active, your joint stabilizer muscles must effectively oppose the actions of your joint-movers to keep your joints aligned and healthy. This is joint fitness in a nutshell.

boulderchiropracticclinic.com