Rest Vs Exercise- Part 3

This is part 3 of a series, the first 2 were outlining the science and goals behind each approach; rest and exercise based theory. 

This third and final part of the series is my personal preference and why. 

Personally I don't see either rest or exercise therapy as long term solutions. In summary of the first two blogs. 

Rest is not a long term solution if you want to return to the thing you’re resting from whether that be work or exercise. As rest doesn't change anything other than allowing your body's inflammation levels to reduce when you return to said activity, the same process will happen again as it did the first time around. This will leave you in the same situation 6 months further down the line. 

Exercise based treatment also has many flaws but two stand out to me more than others. Firstly, rarely will increasing workload for 6 -12 weeks resolve an issue because one the workload is usually too much already, hence why you are getting symptoms, secondly 6-12 weeks is not long enough for muscle proliferation to take place. 

My preferred method would be to identify the true root cause of the symptoms. I would start this process by testing every tissue around the area of complaint, once I have identified every tissue that is not functioning properly, I will then seek out the cause or the why.

If this is a muscle weakness I want to know whether the muscle is damaged in any way or whether it is inhibited, which is much more likely. An inhibited muscle appears as weak, whether that weakness, cramping, shaking etc and is caused by a miscommunication within the nervous system. The brain which controls all bodily functions needs to be able to send a clear and accurate message to a muscle in order for the muscle to be strong. Much like the current traveling from your light switch to a bulb for the bulb to turn on. 

If there is a miscommunication the brain can send a signal but the muscle may not receive it, not its full strength anyway. Carrying on with the light bulb analogy this would be like turning your light switch on and the bulb flickering intermittently or the bulb turning on only very dimly. If this light bulb scenario were to happen you would first check the bulb, which is like checking the muscle. If changing the bulb didn't help, you would then check the current from the light switch. This is us checking the signal or communication from the brain to the muscle. 

We see this scenario almost everyday where a person has been mistreating the muscle (changing the light bulb) and they should have been looking at the signal and communication (current from the switch).

Stretching and exercises are like changing the bulb, our approach is like checking the current. This is why we are able to get life changing outcomes every day at our practice where others have failed. 

Because we are doing something different than 99% of other places. We are addressing the true cause of an issue not simply treating or masking the symptom.