If you remember, last month I described a patient’s experience after having a trauma to her left hip 7 years ago. After getting only temporary relief with both chiropractic, and physical therapy intervention, she began to practice yoga only to find that it seemed to provoke her pain instead of ease it. Two exam findings stood out: First, providing a traction force on her left leg (ie:pulling on it) gave her significant relief. Second, her warrior 3 pose proved to be surprisingly painful.
The fact that she got such immediate pain-relief when I pulled her left leg suggests that something that was compressed (ie:the hip joint or lumbar facet joint) appreciates that it is being decompressed. And if you’ve ever done warrior 3 you can see that it’s obviously a pose that produces compressive forces on the hip and lower back. So, our challenge was to find out what is being compressed, and Unfortunately, That is a common finding when there is dysfunction in a joint, and often sets off a series of events.
In the rest of this article, I’ll describe some of the events that occur behind the scenes when we injure a joint which makes recovery more challenging.
At this point, it helps if you understand two concepts: pain inhibition, and pain avoidance. After most joint injuries, if the damage is moderate to severe, the surrounding muscles are brought into the service of protecting the injured area by splinting the joint during the early healing phase (very helpful). However, while it’s busy splinting, it’s not functioning in its normal capacity, and starts getting weak (not helpful). In fact, often the pain itself seems to prevent the muscle from functioning normally. This is not something that we can control. It is something our nervous system does. This is pain inhibition, and research shows that it often occurs in areas of chronic pain.
At the same time, pain avoidance is often occurring. When something hurts, it’s natural for us to find ways to move and hold ourselves that make the part less painful. Over time these avoidance strategies become habitual, and without knowing it, the muscles around the injured joint become more and more atrophied.
As you can see, after a joint injury our muscles suffer. Nervous system adaptations and improper use make a muscle weak and short, and this is exactly what happened to my patient. But wonderful things can happen when we begin tending to a problem consistently using the proper tools. And we can accomplish this through yoga.
You might be thinking, “Hold on here! Warrior 3 is really hard for me too, but I’ve never injured my back or hip.”
Ah yes. It’s true. So next month I’ll describe which muscles are pushed to the limit in this pose. You’ll see why it was so painful for her, and you’ll also learn some training strategies you can use if it’s challenging for you as well.
