A new study has shown that individuals with back pain have reduced variability in the muscles of the back when performing a repetitive lifting task.
In healthy controls, activity was seen to steadily increase throughout all the erector spinae group during the task. Those with back pain however used a smaller percentage of those muscles which led to an increase in local pain sensitivity.
Pain causes adaptations within the central nervous system as your body finds new ways to complete the tasks you set it. These are great as a short term solution but in the long term they can set you up for recurring problems.
Just one incident of lower back pain has been shown to inhibit multifidus, one of the deeper spinal muscles. If a muscle is inhibited it can’t contract effectively and when that happens it starts to become structurally weaker over time.
Other muscles that share similar roles have to work harder to compensate and this will lead to poor performance, early fatigue and most likely more pain.
In order to reverse this cycle, inhibited muscles must be located and targeted to restore function and reduce pain.
The purpose of Muscle Activation Techniques is just that. By restoring the contractile capability of muscles that have been affected by pain and overuse we can give variability back to your central nervous system.
The more muscles that are available to contribute to a task, the easier it will be and the less chance you will have of being in pain again.