If you want your joints to stay strong and healthy for the rest of your life, then you need to learn how to speak their language. Not even the best Chiropractor can stop your joints from breaking down, only you can.
Force is the language of all cells. Your joints are dumb, they will only respond to force, nothing else. Knowing this means you can use it to your advantage.
Cartilage and ligaments have a very poor blood supply but are vital to the longevity of your joints. The only way to flush nutrients into those tissues is through movement. Without movement, they become malnourished and starved to death. Movement is medicine; pure and simple.
Controlled Articular Rotations: Introduced by Dr. Andreo Spina not long ago. It involves actively taking a joint through the outer limits of its range of motion, then adding rotation. In all honesty, this is the best possible thing you can do to create long-lasting and healthy joints.
This post is going to teach you how to:
- Increase the health and longevity of your joints
- Get back your range of motion and keep it
- Use a simple screening process to find problems in your joints
- Know how to rehab your own injuries.
Active, rotational movements of the outer limits of articular motion.
-Dr. Andreo Spina, Chiropractor and creator of Functional Range Conditioning (FRC)
IMPROVE YOUR RANGE OF MOTION
Preserving your range of motion depends on the constructive remodeling of tissue and the guidance of proper cell turnover. This is signalled by the stress that movement places on those tissues. Movement speaks to the cells and tissues of our joints through physical force. If we aren’t speaking to the joint tissue and cells through in this was, on a regular and continuous basis, they will adapt and reduce the joints overall function and range of motion. This is why I teach exercises that use the exact same mechanism as to how we lose range of motion, to allow us to regain it. We signal the joints cells and tissue to build, not break down. Spark activity in the mechanoreceptors and prevent fibrotic tissue from settling in these critical areas.
ARTICULAR HEALTH AND LONGEVITY
By adding rotation at the joints end range, we impact the three most vital components to joint health.
- Removing fibrosis (or scar tissue) in the joint space or joint capsule
- Improved neuromuscular control ie. our nerves communicate better with our muscles when coordinating movement.
- Preserve the cartilage by flushing it with nutrients
- BREAK APART SCAR TISSUE
- By challenging our joints end-ranges and then adding rotation, we’re basically forcing structural change by activating the peripheral articular mechanoreceptors. So, scar tissue won’t be able to mature at the edges of the joint surface. And when scar tissue is already there, we’ll break it down by mechanical force. Ahhh, beautiful isn’t it?
- BETTER NEUROMUSCULAR CONTROL
- Shearing of articular surfaces or pinching of the capsular tissue on the ‘closing’ side of a joint are extremely damaging forces and severely limit the longevity of our bodies joints. These can be completely avoided through coordinated neural activity. Our neuromuscular control needs to be trained and challenged on a regular basis. By moving a joint through it’s full range regularly, we are essentially educating proper neural control and activity in relation to our articular surfaces.
- PRESERVE THE CARTILAGE
- Movement is not only like giving the cartilage a massage, but it’s the only possible mechanism we have to flush it with nutrients. It’s a live tissue when it’s starved, it dies. I’ve had countless patient’s come to me in agony because the joints in their knees, hips or low back are scraping bone-on-bone.
SCREENING YOUR JOINTS HEALTH
So how do you know if your joints are dysfunctional? By testing what they can do. Test their outer limits, add rotation, and you’ll feel exactly which areas are smooth and which are gritty and stuck. We know what the normal movements should be, so anything that strays from this ideal function becomes immediately obvious. It allows skilled Chiropractors and the best Physiotherapists to direct the best interventions.
REHABILITATION AFTER INJURY
Controlling inflammation is often the starting point of injury rehab. I would hope, that with modern days evidence, all Chiropractors, Physiotherapists and manual therapist know that the most effective way to control inflammation is through movement. Please oh please don’t do rolling the old R.I.C.E. protocol and ice and rest your injured joint. If someone has told you to ice and elevate your swollen ankle, please read this post on how Rest Ice Compression and Elevation is wrong. The research is out, so should the awareness.
How amazing is that, though, the best-known method to control excessive swelling after tissue damage is something that we were all born to do. Stop taking anti-inflammatory medication that’s making your stomach’s bleed and destroying your digestive tract. You just need to get up and move.
The next posts will isolate the ever-important area of the body and teach you specific exercises using the above-detailed mechanism to achieve strong, healthy and long-lasting joints. Joints that last a lifetime.
STAY HEALTHY MY FRIENDS
Dr. Justin Guy
Oakville Chiropractor at Mobility Plus Chiropractic
