The Essential Laws Of Back Pain

The human body is a remarkable system capable of adaptation and change. Three fundamental concepts that highlight this adaptability are neuroplasticity, Davis’s Law, and Wolff’s Law. Each of these principles illustrates how our brain, soft tissues, and bones respond to stress and experiences, shaping our physical and cognitive abilities over time.

Neuroplasticity is the brain's ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections throughout life. This adaptability enables the brain to adjust to new experiences, learn new information, and recover from injuries. Neuroplasticity occurs at various levels, from cellular changes in individual neurons to large-scale reorganization of brain regions. This is kinda like learning a new habit or skill, practicing guitar cords over and over again until you can play the guitar intuitively while singing lyrics without having to think. 

Types of Neuroplasticity

1. Functional Plasticity: This type occurs when one part of the brain takes over functions previously performed by another area that may have been damaged. For instance, if a stroke affects a region responsible for movement, other areas may adapt to control that function. Imagine you work in a team of two sharing the workload 50/50. If your teammate goes on holiday or away, you will have to pick up that workload. In the short term this will mean you get it wrong sometimes, but overtime you will get better, learn and become more efficient.
2. Structural Plasticity: This involves physical changes in the brain’s structure due to learning or experience. For example, engaging in a new skill, like playing an instrument, can lead to increased synaptic connections and even growth in specific brain regions associated with that skill. The brain is like a muscle, if you flex it and work it out it will grow bigger, likewise as with a muscle also, the same applies to a brain if you don't use it you lose it. An unused brain will literally shrink in size. 

Davis’s Law 

Davis’s Law states that soft tissues will adapt to the stresses placed upon them. This principle applies to muscles, tendons, ligaments, and fascia, indicating that when these tissues are subjected to tension or stress, they undergo remodeling to accommodate new demands. This is the principle behind bodybuilding, weight training, flexibility, stretching and soft tissue therapies. If you place a large enough stressor on the soft tissue, constantly enough and for long enough it will respond appropriately to that stressor. The key thing to remember is, it has to be consistent and for long enough. It's not good lifting heavy weights twice, once on your 20th birthday and again on your 60th birthday and claiming you’ve lifted weights for 40 years. The consistency and/or frequency of your weight lifting in that time is really important. Likewise, there is no benefit in lifting weights twice a day for 2 weeks and wondering why you don't look like Arnold Schwarzenegger yet. Now combine the two and train three times a week for 40 years and you’ll be onto something amazing. 

Mechanisms

When soft tissues are exposed to mechanical stress, they respond through processes such as:

• Collagen Remodeling: The primary protein in connective tissues, collagen, reorganizes its fibers in response to tension, enhancing tissue strength and elasticity. An untrained muscle looks like a pile of spaghetti, all messy and disorganized. Then a trained muscle that has undergone collagen remodeling is like spaghetti that is all neatly laid out in lines going from point A to point B.
• Tissue Thickness: Tissues like ligaments and tendons may thicken in response to chronic loading, becoming more resilient to stress. This is every bodybuilder's dream. If I do enough bicep curls, everyday, for the rest of my life, maybe I'll have big enough arms to impress my friends. 

Wolff’s law

Wolff’s Law posits that bone in a healthy person will adapt to the loads under which it is placed. This principle explains how bones strengthen and reshape themselves in response to mechanical stress, becoming denser in areas subjected to higher forces. This is the science behind osteoarthritis. If Bone A is put under more stress than Bone B for 60 years, Wolff’s law will have made Bone A adapt into being bigger and denser to handle the extra load. When this happens to a joint like a hip or knee, science calls this osteoarthritis. 

Wolff’s Law operates through a balance of bone formation and resorption, involving specialized cells:

• Osteoblasts: These cells are responsible for building new bone tissue in response to mechanical load. Like adding bricks to a wall to make it bigger and taller.
• Osteoclasts: These cells break down bone tissue when mechanical stress is reduced, leading to bone resorption. Like removing bricks from a wall to make it smaller. This has multiple implications. A positive one being extra bone growth like osteoarthritis, under the right conditions, can be reabsorbed and removed to improve the health and condition of a joint, like a hip. Apposingly, if a person does not stress at bone at all, like if they were in space without gravity, or immobilized in a chair or bed. Their bones will become less dense, more brittle and weak, meaning they’re more likely to fracture a bone if they fell. This is called osteoporosis. 

Neuroplasticity, Davis’s Law, and Wolff’s Law collectively illustrate the incredible adaptability of the human body. By understanding these principles, we can better appreciate how our brains and bodies respond to challenges, whether through learning new skills, engaging in physical activity, or recovering from injury. Recognizing and applying these concepts to our care plans and recommendations, is not only more ethical and moral, also ensures we can more accurately predict the outcomes of our clients.