Contact a Sports Chiropractor at RAK Chiropractic at 507-208-4305 in Rochester MN 55901 TODAY!
As any athlete knows,there is nothing more frustarating than to be kept from training or racing because of injury. Unfortunately,this realization is particularly frequent with rinners, as running injuries are amongst the most common of all sports injures. To make matters worse, many running injuries become recurrent in nature and are often slow to respond to traditional types of care, This means that even after being sidelined for weeks or even months at a time, once their initial symptoms go away many runners will find themselves hampered by the same issues down the road, starting the whole process all over again.
Now for the good news, a relatively new treatment technique known as Active Release Techniques ® ( ART®) is proving to be a very effective method to treat many common running injuries and is helping to get runners back to training and racing quickly and effectively.
Why are Running Injuries so Common?
When talking about sports injuries it is important to realize that there are 2 major types of injures- acute and repetitive. Acute injuries occur following a single event, such as a fall or collision. Fortunately, these types of injuries are rare in running. By far the most common type of running injury is a repetitive injury. Like the name implies, repetitive injuries occur slowly over time as a result of performing the same motion over and over again.
When examining the running stride you can easily see that it falls into the category of repetitive activity. For example, the average runner will take 800-1000 strides per mile. Over the course of a 5 mile run this means that each heel will strike the ground 5000 times. This high level of repetition is bad enough but making matters worse is the tremendous amount of impact force brought down by each heel strike. Studies show that each heel strike produces a force that is equal to 3-4 times your bodyweight. 150lbs runner will generate approximately 600lbs of pressure with each strike! This force will travel from the foot up the shin, through the knee, up through the thigh and hip, and into the pelvis and trunk. As long as the muscles and joints are working properly the chance of injury is greatly reduced;however, because of the repetitive nature and high impact forces associated with running, even minor problems will greatly increase the chances of pain and injury.
How Do Running Injuries Occur?
As a result of the interconnectedness of the foot,Knee,hip,pelvis and trunk, proper running technique requires not only proper function of each individual muscle and joint, but also requires each body segment to work together in an integrated manner known as the kinetic chain. Even a minor problem in one area will cause problems within the entire kinetic chain. Stride compensations occur when altered or excessive motion in one area caused by a movementproblem in another area.
As a result of the cause-effect relationship between stride compensation and running injuries, it is critical that the entire kinetic chain is evaluated to ensure all areas are functioning properly, not just the area of pain. Failure to identify and correct stride compensations will not only prolong the injury process, but will also lead to the injury re-occurring over and over again.
The Injury Process
Running is a highly repetitive activity that is associated with a tremendous amount of force. Over time the repetitive forces can actually accumulate in the body and lead to strain of the muscles,ligaments, and joints-a process that is greatly magnified when movement restrictions and stride compensations are present. As the runner continues to train, over time the strain imposed on the body will develop into micro-trauma. Initially not painful, this micro-trauma can be perceived as a mild ache or tightness. Although small, this damage needs to be repaired. With micro-trauma, the body repairs the strained tissue by laying down small amounts of scar tissue in and around the injured area. Over time the scar tissue will build-up and accumulate into what we call adhesions. As these scar tissue adhesions accumulate they will place more and more strain on the entire kinetic chain which in turn leads to more micro-trauma. Essentially a repetitive injury cycle is set-up causing continued adhesion formation and progressive movement dysfunction. As the cycle progresses the ability of the muscles to contract properly is affected and the stability of the foot,knee,hip and pelvis becomes compromised. At this point it is not uncommon for the muscles to give way and a more severe pain to occur.
How Are Running Injuries Best Resolved?
The traditional Approach: In an attempt to treat running injuries, a variety of treatment methods are used. Some of the more common approaches include anti-inflammatory medications,rest,ice,ultrasound,muscle stimulation,steroid injections,stretching,exercise and when all else fails,surgery. Unfortunately, most of these traditional techniques generally require a long period of time before they provide any significant relief, and in many cases offer only temporary releif never truly fixing the problem.
The main reason these approaches are often ineffective is that they fail to address the underlying scar tissue adhesions that develop within the muscles and surrounding soft tissues. it is these adhesions that are binding the tissues together, restricting normal movements, and interfering with normal flexibility and contraction of the muscles in the kinetic chain.
Passive approaches such as medications,rest,ice and steroid injections all focus on symptomatic relief and do nothing to address the muscle restrictions and movement compensations. Strecting can help but without first addressing the scar tissue adhesions,stretches and exercises are often less effective and much slower to produce relief or recovery from running injuries. Surgery should always be a last resort and even then the act of cutting out scar tissue will lead to more scar tissue being formed inorder to heal post surgery.
Active Release Techniques ( ART)®
Our Approach: ART®- A Better Solution
Active Release Technique is a new and highly successful hands-on treatment method to address problems in the soft tissues of the body, including the muscles,ligaments,fascia and nerves. ART® treatment is highly successful in dealing with running injuries because it is specifically designed to locate and treat scar tissue adhesions that accumulate in the muscles and surrounding soft tissues. By locating and treating the soft tissue adheasions with ART® it allows the practitioner to 1) break-up restrictive adhesions 2) reinstate normal tissue flexibility and movement and 3) more completely restore flexibility,balance and stability to the injured area and to the entire kinetic chain.
You can think of an ART® treatment as a type of active massage.
The practitioner will first shorten the muscle,tendon or ligament and then apply a very specific pressure with their hands as you actively stretch and lengthen the tissues. As the tissue lengthens the practitioner is able to assess the texture and tension of the muscle to determine if the tissue is healthy or contains scar tissue that needs further treatment. When scar tissue adhesions are felt the amount and direction of tension can be modified to treat the problematic area. In this sense, each treatment is also an assessment of the health of the area we are able to feel specifically where the problem is occurring.
An additional benifit of ART® is it allows us to further assess and correct problems not only at the site of pain itself, but also in other areas of the kinetic chain, which are associated with movement compensations and are often contributing factors to the problem. This ensures that all the sof tissues that have become dysfunctional and are contributing to the specific injury are addressed, even if they have not yet all developed pain.
One of the best things about ART® is how fast it can get results. In our experience the majority of running injuries respond very well to ART® treatment, especially when combined with the appropriate home stretching and strengthening exercises. Although each case is unique and there are several factors that will determine the length of time required to fully resolve each condition, we usually find a significant improvement can be gained in just 4-6 treatments. These results are the main reason that many elite athletes and professional sports teams have ART® practitioners on staff and why ART® is an integral part of the ironman triathlon series.
Contact a Sports Chiropractor at RAK Chiropractic at 507-208-4305 in Rochester MN 55901 TODAY!
Reference: Chris MacEwen
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