HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING

Our tissues are made up of different types of fibers. Elastin is the stretchy type of fiber that is found in high amounts in skin and muscle. Collagen is the tougher fiber that is abundant in ligaments. Tendons have a mixture of both (in between muscles and ligaments).

ELASTIN VS COLLAGEN

When you stress a tissue, there is a certain amount of give, depending on the amount of elastin vs. collagen. The stress creates a strain and the tissue needs time to recover after each stress (collagen tissues need longer as they are not as elastic).  If you apply several small amounts of stress over a short period of time, you have what is called repetitive strain syndrome.

The little stresses build up on top of each other until your tissue reaches its breaking point. If you apply a small amount of stress over a prolonged period of time (like what happens when you have to sit on a long flight and don’t get to change position very often) you again build up the strain on the tissue (and start to squirm around because of the discomfort).

These little muscle aches are telling you this: (“GET MOVING” or “TAKE A BREAK”). This is the hurt, but not the harm. The harm comes when you don’t listen and keep stressing the tissue until it breaks (tears). RECOVERY is an essential part of all activities. This is called taking a break, or changing the stress on your tissues. A physician once put it like this: 

The difference between working out to make your tissues stronger and injury, is that working out is controlled injury. You are only stressing the tissue enough, and then providing it with recovery, so that the body knows it needs to make the tissue stronger. When you overstress the tissue, whether it is gradually, repetitively or with a fast trauma, you get injury.

OUR BODIES ARE VERY SMART!

They know that when we stress the tissues, that it needs to strengthen them. This is called Wolfe’s Law.

What to do to train, work, or play without injury? 

1.  Start small and gradually build mileage, resistance, repetitions.

2.  With mileage (running, swimming, biking etc.) keep track of your weekly mileage and build no more than 10 per cent/week.  Every fourth week should be a recovery week.

3. If you miss a week, don’t increase the 10 per cent the following week, only repeat what you did the week prior.

4. If you miss more than a couple of weeks, start over.

 Having a preventative screening assessment performed by a physiotherapist is also a beneficial way to minimize the risk of injury. This assessment would help determine areas of specific muscle tightness or weakness which will allow you to develop a program to address any issue before the injury occurs.

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