Sports Injury Prevention Anatomy

All non-external impact sports injuries are essentially "local anatomical structure overload". The core logic of prevention has never been the "multi-stretching" or "core training" that is common across the Internet. Instead, it is to first locate the compensatory path in your personal movement pattern, and specifically adjust joint alignment, muscle tension differences, and movement control rhythm, so that more than 90% of sports injuries can be avoided.

Last week I just picked up a novice runner who had been running for three months. The inner side of his left knee had been hurting for almost two weeks. I checked the guide and practiced static squats and quadriceps rolls every day. As a result, the pain was so painful that I had to struggle to go up and down stairs. When I evaluated him, I could see it as soon as I took off my shoes: the arch of the foot collapsed and the femur internally rotated, and the vastus medialis muscle was stretched to a state of eccentric tension. He also practiced squatting desperately to increase the pressure on the inside of the knee joint. Isn't this equivalent to rubbing hard on the already red skin? From an anatomical level, his knee pain was not caused by insufficient muscle strength at all, but by a distorted line of force. When running, the ground reaction force was all stuck on the anserine tendon on the inside of the knee. No matter how much quadriceps training he practiced, it was in vain.

There are actually two different views on this matter in the sports rehabilitation circle. One group is the "structure-first group". They believe that as long as the bones are not aligned correctly, the muscles will exert force on the wrong path. For example, if the arch of the foot is collapsed, you can first put an orthopedic insole to support the arch of the foot. Once the alignment is corrected, the pain will naturally disappear.； The other school is the "function-first school". They believe that if ordinary people do not have congenital skeletal deformities, the structure will naturally return to normal as their muscle control ability improves. The essence of foot arch collapse is that the tibialis anterior muscle and plantar intrinsic muscles are not strong enough. After three months of muscle training, the arch of the foot can naturally lift without relying on insoles. My own experience after doing rehabilitation for so many years is that during the acute pain period, you should first adjust the structure to quickly reduce the load. When the pain is so severe that you can't even walk, don't do any muscle training.

Talking about the gyms that everyone often goes to, I have seen too many people who have backache after deadlifting and roll their erector spinae with a foam roller until they are bruised and bruised but still feel that they are "relaxed enough". Please recall first when you were pulling, did your pelvis turn over halfway through? When the original physiological curvature of the lumbar spine is straightened, the pressure on the front side of the intervertebral disc is 3.7 times that of the normal standing position. The pain you feel is not muscle soreness at all, but the intervertebral disc is sending you an alarm. If you roll the foam roller to relax the erector spinae muscles, the stability of the lumbar spine will only become worse, and the pain will be more severe next time. Oh, by the way, there are also breathing patterns that many people completely ignore. If you hold your breath the whole time when pushing heavy weights, the diaphragm will push up, causing core tension to be imbalanced. The stability of the lumbar spine will directly drop by 30%. The weight that would not hurt you can twist out your lumbar process. This is also a real anatomical problem. Don’t think that breathing and injury are incomparable.

In fact, the kinetic chain of the human body is, to put it bluntly, like wooden beads strung on an elastic cord. Under normal circumstances, the force is transmitted from the feet up and follows the beads one by one without getting stuck at a certain point. If one of the beads in the middle is crooked, or a certain section of the elastic cord is pulled extremely tight, it will break when the force reaches that point, and it will get stuck on the corresponding joint or tendon. If it is used too many times, it will naturally cause injuries. Don’t believe the nonsense on the Internet that “one action can prevent all knee pain.” Anterior knee pain is mostly caused by poor patellofemoral joint alignment. The patella rubs repeatedly in the femoral trochlear groove. You must first release the tension point of the vastus lateralis muscle, and then practice the concentric contraction of the vastus medialis muscle. ； If there is pain on the outside of the knee, it is most likely iliotibial band friction syndrome. You need to relax the tensor fascia lata first, which really has nothing to do with the quadriceps.

In the 7 years I have been doing rehabilitation, I have seen too many people practice blindly and drag small problems into chronic injuries. In fact, ordinary sports enthusiasts do not need to memorize the entire system anatomy. Preventing injuries is really not that complicated. Every time you exercise, pay more attention to feel your body: if you experience any stinging or pulling pain when doing any movement, don't insist on "breaking through the limit". Stop and figure out what structure the painful location corresponds to, whether it is muscle soreness or pain from a stuck joint. Slowly figuring out the boundaries of your body is more useful than following 100 sets of general tutorials on the Internet. Oh, by the way, if the pain persists for more than 3 days, don’t hold on and think “it’ll be fine”, quickly find a reliable rehabilitation practitioner for evaluation. Small tendon injuries and joint effusions that become chronic can really wear you down for years, so don’t make the mistake.