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Health & Fitness

How a Common Joint Problem Can Cause Poor Athletic Performance and Injury When Running

Runners sometimes stress a joint, which causes an associated muscle to weaken. Thus begins a vicious cycle, resulting in injury.

Runners tend to pound their joints, especially the joints of the feet, ankle, knees, hips, and lower back. Sometimes this can cause a joint to move too far and become stuck or jammed. This may or may not cause pain. If the body cannot correct the problem, it will compensate for it.

The nervous system controls and coordinates all muscle function. If a joint doesn't move properly or is misaligned, the nervous system will inhibit the muscles that move it. This is a reflex mechanism the body uses to protect the joint. For example, I often find that a joint problem in the sacroiliac joint (lower back) causes the gluteal muscle on that side to test weak. The same is true for the psoas muscle, a major core muscle that flexes the trunk and helps lift the legs.

Now, the gluteals are important in standing, walking, and running. If the muscle is weak on one side and you run, there is a subtle distortion of the gait that can interfere with performance and make you more prone to injury. The same is true of the psoas. It becomes a vicious cycle where the joint problem causes muscle inhibition, and the muscle inhibition causes abnormal movement which adversely affects another joint which causes inhibition of another muscle and so on.

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You can see where that would make it difficult to perform well in a race and much more likely to injure yourself.

These problems can easily be found, corrected, and double checked. Once the joint problem (hypomobile subluxation) is corrected with a chiropractic adjustment, the muscle tests strong immediately. That is because the muscle is not really weak, but simply inhibited.

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If the problem has been there a while, some rehab exercises may be necessary. If the joint subluxation has been there for a while it may take a few adjustments to correct it. If you are a runner doesn't it make sense to have this simple, non-invasive test before suffering a debilitating injury?

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