The Importance of Muscle Balancing

Posted by Lynk on April 28, 2010 · 1 Comment 

In physical therapy I regularly come across all sorts of injuries, surgeries, and ailments that people present with, but one of the most come things that almost everyone has is an imbalance in their musculature.

Ideally, your body should be balanced from top to bottom, left to right, and front to back. If you are balanced in all directions, not only does it significantly reduce you chance of injury, but current injuries that you may have can be improved through muscle balancing. Balanced muscles around a joint give increased stability and protection for that joint as well as decreasing the regular stress that occurs in that joint because it can be placed on the muscles. Additionally, correct alignment improves performance by allowing the muscles and joints to be placed in optimal positions for the greatest range of motion and strength production. There are even some schools of thought that believe a good portion of disease and injuries are preventable through restoring appropriate alignment of the body.

Imbalances in the muscles of the body can cause significantly increased stress through the joints of the body from head to toe, literally! That increased joint stress significantly increases the likelihood for injury. We live in a forward moving and mirror obsessed society. Computers and long car rides place us in compromised posture for hours at a time. This results in forward head posture, rounded forward shoulders, flattened or extended back, forward rotated pelvis, and increased weight bearing through the balls of the feet. All of these postural deviations cause neck pain, shoulder pain, back pain, decreased breathing capacity, knee pain, and foot pain.

The good news is that all of these pains and problems can be corrected through exercise alone. Utilizing the right exercises you can work to restore the appropriate alignment of the body to decrease current pain and decrease the likelihood of future injury. Many of the exercises that I am going to write about are easy to do, but critical to restoring correct alignment. So, here is the first exercise to start with to begin correcting your alignment. This one is working on restoring normal head position over the shoulders to decreasing neck pain, headaches, and that tight feeling everyone gets across their shoulders.

Neck Retractions

1. Lay on a pillow with the bottom edge of the pillow under the shoulders and the head at the top of the pillow
2. Gently press the back of your head into the pillow giving yourself a double chin
3. Avoid tipping the head up or down
4. Hold the press for 10 seconds then relax
5. Repeat 10x
6. Repeat 5x/day
7. This can also be done in the car at red light (only at red lights) by pressing your head against your head rest or against a wall with a pillow or small folded towel behind you head

Keep watching the blog for more exercises to help decrease your risk of injury and improve your posture for more effective training. Sign up at the top of the page to receive e-mails when more posts go up.

Cheers to your health,

Lynk

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Filed under Injury Management