What is Overloading?
Overloading is a term we use to discuss pain and issues arising from how your body is functioning, compared to a singular tissue injury.
These conditions are often the hardest to explain and the most frustrating to experience due to their repetitive nature. This repetitive nature stems from a few possible factors, and more commonly, a mixture of these things:
- Environmental loading eg. Sitting for whole day.
- Stiffness through the skeletal joints causing uneven loading through tissues. (Think of this stiffness like rust. No mechanical system likes being rusty.)
- Weakness: Postural/stabilising muscles leaving your body vulnerable to stress and pain.
- Joints, discs and tendons degenerative changes.
What are the common areas of the body affected by overloading and functional injuries?
- Upper back: neck pain associated with deep achey pain, shoulder blades pain andheadaches from the back of the eye to skull.
- Lower back pain: local muscle guarding, low back stiffness and potentially sciatica.
- Knee: pain at the front and inner side of the knee, especially when going up and down stairs or from sit to stand.
- Foot: Plantar fasciitis.
What can be done for overloading and functional injuries at Back to Active Sports and Spinal?
Education is the most important step to get right to allow patients to take control of their own health.
At Back to Active Sports and Spinal we develop individualised plans for all of our patients that are designed to get patients to their goal, and give them the ability to stay there. These plans keep all parties accountable and make it easier to track progress.
Your plan will be communicated with your GP so that all aspects of your health and medical teams are on the same page.