To achieve long term pain relief, several things need to be assessed and resolved. Because Kinesiology incorporates many techniques, it can be an effective and thorough therapy to help you find the relief you are looking for.
Movement patterns
As you move, some muscles contract to move your bones and joints, others relax to allow the movement, while other muscles work to support your structure. For example: when bending sideways to the right, muscles on the right side of your spine need to contract while, at the same time, the muscles on the left relax. Other muscles will also be working to hold your body stable, so you don’t roll forward or backwards. If any of the involved muscles aren’t working in a smooth, coordinated series, pain and stiffness can occur.
In a more complicated movement pattern e.g. throwing a ball, imagine the series of contractions and relaxation that needs to happen to allow the ball to be thrown. If any muscle is over-working, or under-working, or is not flexible, and the pattern is performed repeatedly, injury becomes more likely especially if you are not used to the activity or your technique is poor.
Assess muscle function
Individual muscles need to be assessed to ensure they contract and release effectively and can move through a full range of movement. Kinesiology uses muscle testing to test strength, range of movement as well as energy flow.
Posture
Sitting is the new smoking: our sedentary lifestyle is giving rise to many health problems. Hours spent sitting in front of a computer, TV or game consoles cause muscles to become tight and weak and lymphatic flow becomes stagnant.
Forward head posture: when your head sits forward to the shoulders, is just one example of a problem caused by too much computer time. This can lead to chronic pain, numbness in the arms and hands, improper breathing and even pinched nerves. A poorly set up work station can further aggravate the problem of sitting e.g. constantly twisting and reaching to the printer.
Activating muscles to hold your body in correct alignment as you sit, stand, walk, run, sleep etc. is important to remain pain free.
Previous trauma
Trauma can be from a major event such as a car accident or from a minor, seemingly insignificant event like missing a step and landing heavily while walking down stairs.
Even after rest and rehabilitation the pain can come back when you find yourself in the same or similar situation again. This can be because your subconscious recognises the situation and triggers a response pattern that retriggers the pain. After a fall, your body’s natural shock absorbing ability needs to be rebooted to allow it to function pain free. The muscles that contracted suddenly to save you from falling need to be reset, otherwise, they will continue to “grab” every time your body is at a similar angle.
Kinesiology can be helpful especially in trauma related pain because it aims to balance your body not only from the physical aspect, but also the emotional aspect. For example: the feeling of helplessness you felt after a car accident while waiting for emergency services to arrive, also needs to be addressed for the pain to be fully resolved.
Stress
It is easy to understand how stress can trigger pain when you understand that our stress response is actually our ‘fight/flight’ response. When you are stressed your muscles tense in readiness to fight or run. When this happens over a long period the tension becomes difficult to relieve because the tight state becomes the ‘normal’ state.
Again, long term relief is more likely to occur if the underlying stress is also addressed while releasing the muscles.
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