What are we talking about? Motor control. Have you ever had a tight muscle or area of the body that will not “release” no matter what you did? Foam roller, stretch, etc. What if that tissue is tight as a result of something telling it to? It is putting on the brakes… Gray Cook wrote an article on what the motor control system is and how to assess it. In summary, the article talks about something faulty in the body’s coordination, timing, and symmetry. And that is what is causing the body to have the “breaks on” or a motor control dysfunction. If there is tissue tightening, everything from deep fascia to superficial scarring or scar tissue from a previous injury, the muscles will be told to tighten prematurely or even maintain a significant amount of resting tone simply to protect the kink in the system.

Avoiding Tightness in Apex NC

This tightness can also be preserved not from a signal from other tissues but it can be left over from a previous injury that has already been resolved. The muscles never got the message. (look at the safety pin analogy)We can manage these problems, not by looking at muscle, but by looking at the patterns (or the lack thereof) driving inappropriate muscle tone. At any given time, one of those moves will make the biggest difference. Understanding in a biological system which is broken—the organism or the environment—is the hallmark of good science, and tracking movement behavior is where this starts in exercise and rehabilitation.

For more information call our team at Omega Chiropractic Center - Sports Performance & Nutrition in Apex today!