How many times have you come across rehab/physiotherapy establishment offering things like massage, spinal adjustment, heat treatment, acupuncture etc? Sure these are good stuff and to be commended. However these are what we call "passive recovery" methods. Which means that the healing comes from without the body.
I want to bring to your attention "active recovery". Which means that healing comes from within the body. Specifically i want to talk about motor skills practice. This is a most important factor in rehabilitation that is lacking.
Movement is highly specific. If you want to perfect a movement, you have to practice it perfectly many times over. Surely passive recovery methods bring pain relief. But it is temporary. When the patient goes back to his normal life, because his motor skills have not been corrected, he keeps getting himself injured and the pain comes back. So he goes to the physical therapist again and again without actually getting better overall.
Why is motor skills so important? With proper technique in all movements, all activities, the body is using its available resources efficiently. With improper technique there is abnormal wear and tear which cause degeneration and pain.
You think you know how to move because you have been doing it all your life? You cannot be more wrong. Have a look around, how many people know how to squat properly? How many people know how to deadlift properly? If they know, why is it that back pain and knee pain are so common? Why is it that weightlifters and powerlifters can do these movements with heavy weights (some of these athletes are riddles with pain but that is another story)? How many people know how to run properly? Why is it that people keep getting knee pain from running? The problem is not the movement, the problem is HOW you do the movement.
I function primarily as a "movement coach", not as a "rehab therapist". There are enough people out there giving fish to their clients. I want to teach people to catch their own fish.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you have fed him for a lifetime.
Want to catch your own fish? Start with daily joint mobility and basic motor skills.
