Soft Tissue Injuries: Repetitive Motion is a Common Cause
The key to understanding soft tissue injuries—or injuries to the muscles, tendons and other non-bone parts of the body—is understanding how the bulk of them happen.
When most people think of soft tissue injuries, they often think of someone who was injured on the sports field, or who fell in an awkward way, or who went to lift something heavy and felt the injury occur. They think of trauma, a sprain or strain.
While these types of injuries are certainly very common, the vast majority of soft tissue problems occur a different way. Most develop gradually through a process of repetitive motion. Oftentimes when people start feeling symptoms with these repetitive motion injuries, they actually have been dealing with the problem for extensive period of time; only recently did the problem reach a threshold where the patient began experiencing distracting symptoms.
The illustrated chart above shows these processes very clearly. Repetitive motion soft tissue injuries are the result of the gradual buildup of adhesions or scar tissue within the soft tissue. If these adhesions or scar tissue become extensive enough they can begin to bind and inhibit the function of the surrounding anatomy. Much like plaque that builds upon a tooth, adhesions and scar tissue build up within soft tissue that is being repeatedly contracted.
It is also important to note that poor posture is a repetitive motion injury in its mechanism. Instead of having repetitive contractions of the soft tissue, the soft tissue is being held in a contracted position for an extended period of time. Scar tissue and adhesions are actually formed relatively quickly in these situations.
The common clinical presentations that result from repetitive motion injury is a long list, but here are some of the most common: carpal tunnel syndrome, some types of sciatica, many types of various numbness and tingling, headaches, impingement type of shoulder pain (when it's difficult to lift the arm overhead), plantar fasciitis, runner’s knee, calf pain and cramping, and bursitis-like presentations, among with many other conditions. In many of these situations, the people experiencing these types of problems have probably been dealing with less distracting symptoms for a long period of time before these more interfering symptoms began.
For repetitive motion injuries, soft tissue therapies like Active Release Techniques work extremely well at treating them and preventing them from recurring. Much like people who go to the dentist for regular cleanings of their teeth, people with repetitive motion injuries should have the adhesions and scar tissue that build up within their soft tissue and alter their biomechanics subtly dealt with as well.
For more information on repetitive motion and other injuries, contact Dr. Will Vaughn of Performance Rehab and Chiropractic at 608.628.7744