Let me tell you about my lovely client come to me after she had been on crutches for 10 weeks due to a skiing accident
Elle X
I say crutches but it could very easily be any walking aids. I have a love to hate relationship with these things. ‘Elle, WHY?’ Let me tell you.
The body works most efficiently when it is as close to balance as possible. In a balanced state muscles, joints, ligaments, tendons, even organs work more efficiently because they are under little undue stress.
They can move in all directions equally, everybody’s happy! When we bring crutches or any walking aids in the equation, we change where we send our body weight (our Centre Of Mass -COM). Crutches – be it one crutch or two will send your weight probably forward and one way more than the other to cope with moving you and your injured lower limb forward. Bring on the rounded shoulders giving you neck pain and your weight through your arms giving you potential shoulder and elbow pain – which we definitely don’t want!
You also tend to get the classic bottom sticking out. Jump up now and feel what this feels like in your body. For me I instantly feel into my lower back and arms due to the weight from my upper body and neck. Now try 6 – 10 weeks moving around like this? Talk about shrink a bodies comfort zone .
Crutches can be a killer for causing knock on problems throughout the body
I had a lovely client come to me after she had been on crutches for 10 weeks due to a skiing accident. Her ankle was pinned, in a cast, was non weight baring, and immobile in one position in an air boot for all this time. She had been given the all clear by the consultant – no need for physio. Let me say that again NO PHYSIO REQUIRED!
To say I was shocked was an understatement. He had looked at her ankle in isolation, physically the brake had healed. What he hadn’t seen was her right hip taking more load where she had shifted her weight that way for the last 10 weeks. Her talus bone in her injured ankle was rotated and twisted in (everted and internally rotated for those who like the technical terms) keeping her foot in a pronated position. This meant each time she took a step she would not be hitting the ground correctly. In turn this was creating compensations through her body to keep her moving on a daily basis. Compensations had been created in her body left right and centre, unless the body was shown how to move in its original patterns her comfort zone would remain shrunk. I believe this was setting her up for a whole host of problems later down the line e.g hip replacement to the right hip which was taking so much more load.
Until next time …
Knowledge is absolutely power but only when ACTION is taken
Elle x
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