Soft Tissue Injuries

Current treatment models are showing that the myofascial system can be a significant source of chronic pain and dysfunction. When you have an injury or are recovering from surgery, inflammation is the body’s first response in the recovery process. If all goes as planned, the initial inflammation phase is relatively short in duration and your progress to the tissue remodeling phase. Things should heal and you go on with your life.

Now, unfortunately in some cases tissues don’t heal as planned. This can happen for a number of reasons; Return to activity too soon, no activity to restore movement, no rehab or poor rehab, poor tissue health or nutrition, and many other reasons. This will cause ligaments, tendons, and fascia to heal in a disrupted pattern or with scar tissue. And while swelling and inflammation is a problem for acute injuries, the majority pain you are now experiencing may be coming from a disruption of your myofascial system. This is especially true for chronic joint pain.

Muscles, Tendons, and Ligaments

Soft tissue injury of any type can cause a disruption in the myofascial system. These can be acute like sprains, strains, and tears. They can also be chronic injuries from repetitive injury, poor posture, or movement compensations. Surgery is also an under-thought of type of trauma which causes a disruption of the myofascial system.

Disruptions in the myofascial system and scar tissue will produce pain, restrict movement, and create poor compensation patterns. This can produce both muscle and tendon weakness, making you more vulnerable to injury.

Soft tissue injury can be a vague term, so let’s identify what a few are:

• Ankle sprains
• Muscles sprains and pulls
• Tendon pains (like tennis elbow and IT band syndrome)
• Whiplash
• Chronic low loads with poor posture (as in sitting all day at a computer)