Ignoring Warning Signs For the Sake of the Sport

After having performed many of sports physicals over the years, I have seen an ever increasing trend in poor posture. Often, the posture is compromised before a sport is undertaken, and frequently the posture is affected by repetitive motions of a certain sport.

You can simply perform an assessment of your own posture by having another person observe you from behind you (six feet directly behind you). Does one shoulder look higher than the other? Does one hip look higher? Check to see if your feet are straight, is one flaring out more than the other? The knees should be in alignment as well, facing the same direction. Your head should be equally balanced, not leaning to one side. If some differences are noticed, you may have a biomechanical problem that is inhibiting your sports performance.

I like to use the analogy of your car being out of alignment. If your car is misaligned, your tires will wear out unevenly, you will not get optimum fuel efficiency in your car, and it will not run like it should. The same principle applies to the human body. Do you believe that your body would be more or less susceptible to injury if you were a runner and you had one hip higher than the other, which caused one leg to be an inch shorter? Running day-after-day, mile-after-mile?

The body will respond to the misalignment by its innate ability to compensate for its changes and will adapt to the differences. However, there is an insidious process, disease sets in, and so the person may not have symptoms for many years before they experience other health problems. One of the most common conditions that occur is degenerate osteoarthritis of the spine and pelvis. The bottom line is, if your biomechanics were in ideal working order, you would be a better, more efficient runner.

One of the most common comments I hear when a new patient comes into the office is "I can golf fine if I take two anti-inflammatories or pain pills before I golf, but after I'm finished I have a lot of pain". Do you see the point that I am making? If our bodies are giving us pain or it has restricted our range of motion in some way, it is trying to tell us that something is not functioning correctly. Like your car oil light coming on to warn you that the oil is low, do you turn the light off?

We often treat our automobiles better than our bodies. We can thank the pharmaceutical companies and medical profession for constant bombardment in radio, print, and television advertisements. Billions of dollars are spent yearly to convince you to take that little miracle pill or potion for fast relief. They advise us to get rid of that symptom quick, ignore what the cause is. We need to take responsibility for our own health. Listen to your body; no one knows it better than yourself.

A pre-exercise warm up is imperative, but often ignored. Many people want to "get right into their workout" and therefore begin their exercise program before their muscles and ligaments have warmed up sufficiently. Without this precaution, one pre-exposes themselves to unnecessary strain on their ligaments and muscles.

It is even more urgent that we take a serious look at this with the looming changes in our Healthcare System. The quality will not be as good. We should open our eyes, and look to the future. Say to yourself, what if 10, 20 or 30 years from now I have (fill in the blank). What could I have done to prevent that, should I have done this or that? The time for action is now!

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