What causes injuries?

The cause of injuries has been debated for centuries with the blame often going to:

• bad luck
• old age
• overuse
• genetics
• overtraining
• not wearing supportive shoes
• running or jumping on hard surfaces
• nutritional deficiencies
• poor technique
• not cross training
• incorrect warm-up

In cases not involving blunt trauma, injuries and pain are caused simply by dysfunctional joints. Healthy or functional joints maintain joint centration during movement and return to a neutral starting point immediately after movement.

Joint centration is another way to saying optimal joint alignment. This is the most beneficial or optimal alignment of the joint surfaces to properly support the body and external forces and allow the desired movement. Joint centration allows balanced distribution of loads on the joint surfaces and supporting structures. ​

​Injuries are prevented, or at least minimized, by maintaining healthy joints. How do you know if you have healthy joints? ​

A good starting point is looking at your standing relaxed, natural posture. If you see your joints align vertically and horizontally as shown below you are well on your way to reducing your injury risk. If you see any imbalances, like one hip or shoulder being higher than the other, one or both feet turned out, or one of both knees being rotated inward or outward or bow-legged or knock-kneed, your risk of injury can be reduced by improving those imbalances. 

As Pete Egoscue stated above, dysfunctional joints stay engaged in flexion, extension, or rotation. Here are some examples and how that can cause injury or pain. 

1. You notice when looking in the mirror that your left knee turns in, or what is called internal femur rotation. If you walk or run, you'll also see that your femur internally rotates excessively and does not externally rotate normally. This is a dysfunctional joint because it's staying engaged in rotation. This will create stressful friction and wear and tear in the knee joint cartilage surfaces (both tibialfemural joint and patellofemural joint) but also in the hip joint above and the ankle joint below. Internal femur rotation can also create stress on the illiotibial band (IT band) at both the hip and knee. Internal femur rotation is going to cause internal tibial rotation which causes pronation of the ankle/foot and abduction of the foot. This can lead to plantar fasciitis, Achilles tendonitis, and bunions. We could continue looking outward at how the rest of the body has to compensate for the left knee position but I think you get the point. 
2. When looking at yourself from the side view, you notice your pelvis is tilted forward and down, or what is called anterior pelvic tilt. Anterior pelvic tilt is a dysfunctional joint that is engaged in flexion (hip flexion). You'll notice when you walk or run your pelvis tilts excessively anterior when your leg tries to extend behind your body and this creates excessive arching in your lower back, or lumbar lordosis. Anterior pelvic tilt can create issues in your hip joint because the anterior surfaces of the femur head and acetabulum are closer together and this can cause femoral-acetabular impingement (FAI). Anterior pelvic tilt and the accompanying lumbar lordosis can create lower back injury and pain because of the posterior compression of the spinal structure that lordosis creates. Again, this one imbalance of anterior pelvic tilt, creates compensations the travel up and down the body that can lead to stress throughout the chain. 

If you want to prevent or at least reduce your injury risk, start by aligning your posture. The more your posture looks like the anatomical position above, the less likely your chance of injury. 

Need help evaluating your posture and figuring out to improve it? Contact me for a free posture evaluation on Zoom.