Building Body Awareness
By having optimal movement patterns, there will be less stress on individual body parts and a lesser likelihood to get injured or endure pain. This is possible only by building body awareness after correcting the real cause of any injury and properly rehabilitating the deficiencies.
By examining general movements, chiropractors are able to identify any asymmetries and limitations to specific areas in the body. We are also able to identify certain patterns of compensatory movements and determine the real cause of the problem versus just looking at the pain. By looking deeper at the root problem, we can then determine if the cause is joint restriction, muscle stiffness or weakness, stability issues within the joint, or from another cause. After we fix the underlying problem, personalized exercises can be given to restore mobility, increase flexibility, and strengthen and enhance joint awareness (which are usually lost due to injury or advanced age). More sport or task specific movement training could be employed to build the neuromuscular pathways and encourage the proper sequencing (timing and muscle recruitment) of specific movements.
It is important to build and maintain body awareness – sensing pain, stiffness or a generalized feeling that something is “off” or “wrong”. The benefit of being body-aware is that we can avoid injury or re-injury, fix small problems before they get out of control, and fix long-term/chronic problems/issues.