Patients often believe that the cause of their muscle pain is due to weakness in either the inherent muscle or the antagonistic muscles. In such cases, they are advised to strengthen and exercise these muscles to alleviate their pain. Although strengthening antagonistic muscles could potentially help by taking pressure and stress away from the painful areas, this still doesn’t address the main source of the problem. Furthermore, strengthening the muscles that hurt (which are already in a chronically contracted state) could cause the muscles to go into a hyper-contracted state, further worsening the condition. In the former case we haven’t addressed the true source of the problem, and in the latter, we have exacerbated the condition, neither of which has alleviated the pain and the problem remains.
Identifying the Problem & Fixing It
So what is the true source of the problem and how do we fix it? At Delos, we believe that hyper-contracted muscles and fascia are often the true source of chronic pain, especially when the pain is musculoskeletal in origin. These contracted muscular fibers posses a tremendous mechanical force on surrounding tissues and lead to a variety of pathological conditions including pain. By micro-stretching the hyper-contracted muscle tissue, chronic contraction is removed, congestion alleviated, and blood and lymphatic flow are regained. This revitalizes the muscle tissue and restores normal function.
Once the muscles are restored to a normal anatomical and physiological state, we believe that strengthening them is essential to maintaining health. So before starting a strength training program, we advise our clients to make sure that their muscles are loose and free of chronic contraction. A truly healthy muscle is one that is not only strong, but is also free of any of these chronically contracted fibers.
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