In no specific order, their answers are as follows: Dr. Kwame Brown: "Well, John this seems like a good question to ask, but I am not sure that it is an answerable one. This phenomenon could very easily be opposite for different cases. I can easily imagine someone starting out with a bad habit, like slouching, which can cause muscle imbalances over a long period of time, and this resulting in an alteration of motor patterns. However, I can also imagine very easily someone starting out with a muscle imbalance stemming from an injury or some sort of congenital problem, which would result in an alteration of motor patterns. What we are really talking about here, most likely, is something that becomes a cycle. Each can be arrived at as an effect of the other, or serve as a cause. This is one of the phenomena that make the job of the physician, therapist, or trainer very difficult. Unfortunately, it is often impossible to discern a cause and effect relationship here. Anyone who does is just guessing, many times just to give themselves a start point from which to launch a training program (or, unfortunately, to make themselves seem like an expert). We can, however, learn a lot by talking to someone about their childhood experiences (just a hint for all you young trainers and therapists out there)." Rick Karboviak: "This might be a 'chicken or the egg' question. Take a female HS athlete for instance: does poor posture throughout a school day cause a compensatory movement pattern while in basketball practice, and does a muscle imbalance become that as a result of the compensation in her movement? Or was there just an imbalance to begin with? Who knows. My feeling is that daily movement patterns and habits can influence other mechanics of the competitive sports nature. A poor posture whether in work or school can cause a lot of things to go wrong in the chain of movement. I feel since we have such various daily movement patterns and habits of a light intensity nature, we can develop larger imbalances and notice them when we are called upon to higher intensity exercise & movements. We are simply taking an organism that has been conditioned to do as little as possible (since we have such great things as computers and such do to our work for us it seems), and then call on a large demand to it through a sports activity or high intensity exercise. So, I think muscle imbalances are caused by compensatory movement patterns, due to the nature of the society we live in. We might be doing too much light intensity work or hardly any work at all, and then all these imbalances show up because we simply don't have the manual labor strength for higher demand tasks, as we once had as a society." Chaney Weiner: "Muscle imbalances and compensatory movement patterns are intertwined with each other. If one has a muscle imbalanced(however it may have been caused) there is a pretty good chance that a compensatory movement pattern will result. On the flip-side if someone always compensates in a particular movement it is likely a muscle imbalance will occur. What it ultimately boils down to, in general, is that the nervous system is the command center. The muscles are a slave to the brain. Practicing proper moving patterns with as little compensation as possible, even if the range of motion is not to it's fullest is a good progression to start with in dealing with muscle imbalances." John Izzo: "Without reading the others' responses, I will say that compensatory movement patters that are fostered from young ages facilitate muscle imbalances. As humans grow older, research has shown that we lose flexibility. I don't believe that flexibility just goes **poof** and goes away one day. I believe that taken the actions that we participate in everyday contribute to faulty movement patterns seen by many therapists daily. I think that faulty movement patterns are a direct result of purposeful incorrect movement in life: work, playing, exercising, etc. We learn the wrong way to exercise and we pay the price 3-5 years later with an aching shoulder or painful knees. We slouch in our chairs and sit 1 inch away from a computer monitor and we suffer from stiff necks and aggravated cervical discs. Then, in a quest to better ourselves, we hit the gym and perform these exercises we learned in "muscle magazines" and further damage our posture and muscle-joint relationships. The moral of my story? Be aware...be more aware of your body more-so than your therapist. Be aware of how you lift, be aware of how you sit, walk, and sleep. Find sources that preach correct exercise strategies and programming and learn how to NOT exacerbate muscle imbalances so compensatory movement patterns can be corrected." Rob Pilger: "Good question, both seem to go hand in hand.. muscle imbalance, poor motor learning, or recovering from a former injury, or never having that pain issue looked at and it still hurts, compensation occurs. An example of muscle imbalance in the pelvis, and compensation while in motion, look at a compensated trendelenburg, when you lift the leg, the body bends to compensate for the weak glute medius. Muscle imbalances can be sports induced, (also sport can cause compensatory patterns on the same hand..) ergonomically induced, training faulty movement patters (ex. improper scapula humeral rhythm) so on. As stated above, having a pain issue can cause you to move different, compensate, "guarding" can occur, and you begin to have a mess. Yes, we can list many scenarios.The prevention, or solution, would be to strive to have a body in balance. Seek optimal muscle length tension, ideal joint ROM. Teach proper movement patterns, sporting technique, proper lifting, proper ergonomics, ideal posture, address pain issues, etc. Adhering to this would go along ways to even worrying about both." Chris Blake: "Not to generalize the masses of human nature, but most people choose the path of least resistance especially when it comes to posture. If you ever get a chance to see a baby in it's beginning of development in movement the baby develops neck strength to support the head first. Then when you place a baby on it's stomach the first movement pattern that the baby develops is........ Extension. The baby will lift it's head first (into extension) and then will try to get up on it's hands and then eventually knees. One of the things that I found through having a baby was when you are holding it, the baby will all of a sudden fully extend out like they want to free fall off of you and onto the floor. Luckily I didn't drop my son once I realised what he was doing, but after talking to a group of new parents they also found the same thing happening. Anyways, our innate ability is to extend. But somewhere along the line people begin to slouch (based on the fact that most of our lives involve sitting and/or doing things in front of us i.e. eating, driving, typing, playing basketball, bench pressing, etc....). Fuel poor posture with school kids carrying the weight of their locker in their book bags on their backs and now we have postural issues that will carry with them the rest of their lives. Once poor posture is established to be the norm for the individual, the nervous system will accomidate this slow developing shift and certain muscle imbalances take place. The next time you get a chance to watch a womens college basketball or high school girls basketball game check out the athletes' postures. Hyperextended knees, excessive lordotic curviture in their backs, Rounded shoulders projecting forward, forward head posture.....it's all there. Is there any wonder why the females are tearing their ACL's at an epidemic rate? Head and shoulders placed forward with a hyperlordotic curve in the back shifts the center of gravity forward placing undue stress on structures that were not designed to handle such stresses. So how do we correct the train tracks before it becomes a train wreck? Take your clients through what good posture feels like (you can tell them to stand up straight, but if they have never felt what straight is they won't understand), stretch muscles in the front (Pec major and minor), stretch the hip flexors (iliopsoas, rectus femoris), and stretch the calves (gastroc and soleus). Then strengthen the back (lots and lots of rows), strengthen the abdominals (TVA, Obliques, Upper Rectus), strengthen the Glutes and hamstrings. Stretch the tight areas, and strengthen the weak. In essence, you have to create an imbalance to help correct an imbalance. So to recap; faulty movement patterns create and reinforce muscle imbalances which in turn create compensatory movement patterns." Steve Payne: "I am under the distinct belief that the muscular imbalance must be the first "deformity" of the physique, followed by the compensatory movement patterns. The reason is simple; we spend so much time doing the things that cause the imbalance in the first place. Sitting for inordinate amounts of time in a slouched position, hunched at the computer, etc. It's not that the body isn't functioning improperly for movement patterns, rather it's functioning properly for the non-movement patterns it has learned. The body, through these un-natural habits, "learns" to perform well in them, which causes dysfunction in exercise and otherwise "normal" movement patterns and activities. All of these things contribute to the compensatory movements that must be addressed in order to allow free and improved movement patterns outside the workplace, home and other non-movement environments, like air travel, car rides, etc. Any attempt at correcting these imbalances, without spending a good amount of daily time in that correction phase, does little for the correction process. |
