- You can’t separate a muscle from the brain that controls it.
.
Rehabbing an injury can be a discouraging process. If you’ve ever had to manage pain, you might have encountered a “gap” between rehab focused exercise and performance training. To reduce pain and prepare for training we need to use a more comprehensive strategy, based on the most current evidence.
.
To that end, the concept of “Tissue Neuroplasticity” can be used to inform training decisions. It says that both strength and motor control are required for a brain/muscle to perform better and to reduce pain long term , and both may be altered after injury. we should therefore create rehab and training methods that challenge both the painful tissue, the brain and the body as a whole.
.
To incorporate motor control in the process, keep the rehab-training more goal relevant. If our knee (patella) is irritated but you can still find ways to squat with minimal discomfort- do that, and combine it with focused accessories to build load tolerance. No need to avoid the movement entirely focusing only on tendon strength, and no need to focus just on motor control. The best rehab-training is a mix of both. - Rio, E., Kidgell, D., Lorimer Moseley, G., Gaida, J., Docking, S., Purdam, C., & Cook, J. (2016). Tendon neuroplastic training: Changing the way we think about tendon rehabilitation: A narrative review. British Journal of Sports Medicine, Vol. 50, pp. 209–215.
Menu