Ever sprained an ankle, only to end up with a sore back, neck and possibly shoulders?  While the human body is incredibly resilient, it’s also incredibly fragile.  One thing goes wrong in the body and suddenly everything is out of whack!  From illness that may start as nausea but turn into headaches and sore joints, to a joint injury that leaves the other joints and muscles adjusting to compensate, the body is a finely tuned machine that can go completely haywire if one element isn’t working correctly.

It’s highly unlikely that any single joint pain will be isolated to just that one joint.  There are almost always additional negative effects throughout the kinetic chain (a chain of joints or tissue that work together), and it will get worse over time if it is not corrected.  Take for instance shoulder pain.  You may have thought that simple task of raising your arm to get a plate out of the cabinet over head was what threw your shoulder out, but chances are, that was just the straw that broke the camel’s back.  What’s more likely is that your latissimus dorsi (long back muscle, and only muscle, that connects the arm to the spine and pelvis) was tight from a hip dysfunction which was caused by overly tight and overactive hip flexors (muscles that connect the spine and pelvis to the femur/leg) from long periods in the seated position.  Yes, sitting too long can injure your shoulders!  So it’s not hard to believe that an ankle or even just a toe injury that can leave you limping and placing more weight on the other leg which can tighten muscles which shift your knee joint, which can shift your hips, which in turn shifts your spine, all resulting in suddenly throwing out your shoulders, elbows, and even give you headaches, which if bad enough, can lead to nausea!  Who knew a stubbed toe could make you throw up?  The body is an incredible machine, but much like a finely tuned bike, if you throw a stick in the spokes, the whole thing gets flipped upside down and useless.

So what can you do to keep all of this from happening when an injury occurs?  First and foremost, make sure you’re already on a resistance training and stretching regimen.  Resistance training isn’t just for building big muscles and stretching isn’t just for doing the splits!  Proper resistance training (emphasis on proper) strengthens the entire kinetic chain throughout the body, strengthening all of the joints, removing imbalances to prevent injury in the first place, and if an injury occurs, it’s much more likely to heal faster and limit the negative effects throughout the body.  Stretching helps keep muscles from tightening up which can put additional stress on joints and shift things out of place due to excessive pulling from lack of range of motion.  Secondly, see a chiropractor.  They specialize in making sure that the spine and joints are in proper alignment to help avoid additional injury while you wait for your initial injury to heal.  Next, continue your workouts if possible.  Don’t push through the pain, work around it.  Just because you have a sprained ankle doesn’t mean you’re entire workout routine is shot.  It’s imperative to keep those muscles and joints working properly so they don’t get weak on you and fall out of place.  This is where having a personal trainer can be a huge benefit; we know how to work around those injuries to allow it to heal while maintaining the rest of the body and keeping it in good working condition.  And lastly, eat well!  People have a tendency to eat like crap when they are injured.  Maybe it’s the additional down time and the mind wanting something to do so it reaches for food, or maybe it’s because you were always given ice cream when you were injured as a child and it’s just become a habit you kept up.  Either way, stop it!  The body needs proper nutrition to heal as fast as possible, feeding it junk will prolong the agony.  And if you gain weight while you’re injured, that’s just more weight that joint has to hold when you do attempt to use it…which could send you right back to injury land!

So the next time you have a joint injury that you are not sure where it came from, or think that swatting at that fly over head was what hurt your neck, think again.  Chances are, that injury was set up from another imbalance in the body somewhere else.  Take care of your body, it’s the only one you have!  At least until science learns how to re-grow body parts or gets better at turning us into cyborgs….I would love a bionic arm!