I am aware that there are still many within the local area who still do not know the importance of what I do for ALL individuals (not just in an elitist manner), or understand what Biomechanics is at all… Therefore, I have prepared an analogy to help you appreciate this.
Biomechanics looks at the alignment of your body in specific situations – you could have Biomechanics in the context of elite sport (e.g. to fine-tune jumping or throwing technique), or in day-to-day life e.g. in the context of standing, walking, running etc. The majority of us have quite profound muscle weaknesses in our bodies, which prevents us from holding ourselves in proper alignment, which has implication for injuries in the short-term. If not addressed like in most people, it then wears our joints prematurely. This often arises from poor lifestyle habits such as prolonged sitting.
"The majority of us have quite profound muscle weaknesses in our bodies, which prevents us from holding ourselves in proper alignment, which has implication for injuries in the short-term. If not addressed like in most people, it then wears our joints prematurely. This often arises from poor lifestyle habits such as prolonged sitting."
I normally use running as an example, because even if you’re not ‘a runner’, then it is still a big part of most other sports. Now imagine a runner (beginner or more established) who does the typical habit of just running and that’s all. This individual will most likely train for a big event by simply increasing their mileage and thinking that’s all there is to it. But while aerobic capacity is important, it is far from being the only thing we need to consider. We also need to incorporate both strength and technical work.
My analogy is this – if you were building a house, you wouldn’t place it on top of some boggy ground, and start building without laying the foundations, would you? All that will happen is that the house would sink (like the house on the left in the picture below). Therefore, you should lay the foundations like the house on the right, so it doesn’t sink. But if we apply this to running, your strength development IS your foundation – you can’t build an effective training programme if you are not strong enough. That is why runners are constantly breaking down due to injury, because through leading unnatural lifestyles, certain muscle weaknesses start to occur e.g. through sitting at our office desks. If these strength deficits are not addressed, and we then simply get up out of our seats and start to run, then we lose our ability to run naturally, and therefore safely. After all, how can a natural running technique be borne out of such an unnatural lifestyle?
"...if you were building a house, you wouldn’t place it on top of some boggy ground, and start building without laying the foundations, would you? All that will happen is that the house would sink (like the house on the left in the picture below). Therefore, you should lay the foundations like the house on the right, so it doesn’t sink. But if we apply this to running, your strength development IS your foundation – you can’t build an effective training programme if you are not strong enough."
Once we have this strength, we can then build upon it by doing technical work, as running is just like any other sport in the sense that you need to learn a proper technique. Because again, we need to re-train our bodies to run naturally – we can’t effectively learn to run properly if the muscles we need to use in order to run naturally are too weak to use (from our lifestyles). That’s why strength development should come first, then technical work much later. In reality though, most runners muddle this up in a random ‘a bit of this, and a bit of that’ fashion, which is why most technical work runners do doesn’t really translate into any lasting improvement. Only after the strength and technical development have been adhered to can you then safely build training load to minimise the risk of injury, and doing damage to your long-term joint health.
So, as you can see, there’s a proper order to things, and actually most people I see fall down and get injured due to not doing even the most basic things. Never assume that you can just throw yourself in to something – if you were planning on driving on a several hundred mile road trip, and were buying a used car to do so, then you wouldn’t embark on this adventure without first checking what state the car was in, so why do people not check what state their body is in before they start doing a demanding thing such as exercise? Knowing where you need to improve BEFORE breaking down with injury is of paramount importance and that is where I can help.
Hopefully this explanation has helped you to understand why paying attention to your bodily alignment by considering Biomechanics is so important. This however is just a snippet of information – to learn more about the topic why not buy my online Biomechanics and Injury Prevention Online Workshops? (available here: www.willgoodbournsportsmassage.com/onlineworkshops) Or better still, book an appointment!