If you have been to a physio with an injury, you would have possibly heard that your ‘muscles are imbalanced’. This imbalance was probably explained to be the cause of the pain you were having- whether it be postural pain, muscular injuries such as a strain or tendonitis, or joint irritation.

So what does this actually mean?

Let’s start by looking at the reasons for pain.

Musculoskeletal pain (ie pain from muscles and joints) occurs in the presence of any nor or a combination of the following issues:

• Poor or abnormal joint biomechanics, altering the ideal way in which the body’s joint, postures and muscles are to work
• Abnormal loads trough the tissues (muscles, tendons, ligaments, fascia and the joints), causing them to become fatigued or irritated
• Abnormal movement patterns, again loading up some structures of your body more than others, causing them to become sore
• Altered and non ideal muscle activation patterns, again altering the best way we move or hold ourselves

So, how does any of this start?

When you look at a child who is free of pain, and watch them move as they play or sit as they eat, and they have the most stunning poise and posture. They way they move is uninhibited and as it should be. Their posture is held with balance across all of the muscles that need to work to hold their little bodies up. They have not yet been affected by positions of sitting all day like we adults, or sedentary lifestyle or bad postural habits.

You could say that their muscles are ‘balanced.’

As we become accustomed to new ‘learned’ postures that are not ideal, muscles begin to work in altered ways. These slow insidious changes to our body become the new way we hold ourselves- the new habits. Some muscles will begin to work harder or have increased tone and others will become weaker.

You could say that muscles become ‘imbalanced’.

What is muscle tone?

Muscles have a normal state of tension, even at rest. The muscles continuously ‘buzz away’ with a message from the nerves that innervate them. So in reality, the resting state of a muscle still has low activation going on. This tone of muscles is necessary to protect them from sudden injury form stretching, or to help maintain normal posture and support around the joints of the body.

Putting it all together.

The tone of each muscle around each and every joint of the body needs to be balanced for the alignment and movement of the joint to be optimal. In poor posture, in injury, in compensated or adapted movements, this becomes out of whack. Some muscles become spasmed or tight (you could say in ‘high tone’ or ‘over-active’), while other muscles nearby become weak or not activated (you could say in ‘low tone’ or ‘under-active’).

This ‘imbalance’ and can pull a joint into poorer alignment and encourage further weaknesses, less support for the joint, altered movement, stresses, loads and pain.

You could imagine that the tightrope walker with the beautifully balanced pole is your painfree joint with the balance of muscles about all right. He remains centred, balanced, performing at his best.

In the same way, you could imagine the tightrope walker without the balanced pole, with too much pole length pulling him one way and not enough length from the other side to pull him back. This is the painful joint or posture with an imbalanced muscle system supporting it, all overloaded, stressed and painful.

You need your physio

This is where your physio can help you out. They can teach you about restoring the correct muscular balance and muscle tone around your painful joints and postures. You will need to learn to turn off those over active muscles and learn to find and strengthen your underactive ones. You can then achieve that perfect postural support, joint alignment and movement perfection.

The zipper front – the best visual cue for the lower belly I have heard!

Abdominal separation or Rectus Diastasis (RD) is a common and necessary part of carrying a baby and being a new mum. It affects 66% of women.

RD is the wonderful pregnant body’s way of getting your abdominal muscles around your growing belly by separating down the middle. This is not a complete separating away, but more a stretching of the thin tissue of connective tissue or fascia called the linea alba that gives our abdominal muscle that vertical line in the ‘six pack’. Picture those men’s fitness magazine cover boys – the dividing up of the abs into those ‘packs’. RD is necessary but if the separation of your belly muscle is too great (they say, greater than 3 fingers wide), there can be knock on effects to the region. These can include:

• Poor abdominal activation and imbalance about the deep corset abdominals (‘the core’)
• Inability to breathe well with the diaphragm, our best breathing muscle and also a big part of our postural ‘core’ control
• Poor pelvic floor function such as incontinence, urgency, and also the pelvic floor’s important role in our posture
• Lower back, pelvic or hip pain and/or poor movement
• Poor aesthetics – a jelly belly and lower abdominal protruding outward, forcing us to suck in our bellies ( to look better) and create another bag of problems about the region.

Back in January 2014, I wrote about 6 top tips in protecting abdominal separation. Recently I stumbled across the teachings and blog from a women’s health physio from the US named Julie Wiebe. I love this woman! She is a passionate physio doing amazing stuff assisting women about the world in ante natal, post natal and pelvic floor troubles.

Among many things (of which I am sure you will hear from me in fixnews letters to come), she had the most wonderfully simple analogy for the separated belly- the open fly or zipper.

She says:

I like to think of a diastasis (ie belly separation) that has resisted closure like an open zipper. An open fly affects more that just the zipper, it strains the button above, it messes with the fit of the pants, exposes things not supposed to be exposed.

What you do with the abdomen in a short prescribed exercise session a few times a day cannot beat 16-18 hours a day of standing, sitting and moving in lousy alignment that separates the midline all day. If your alignment keeps your fly open all day, then all your movements and daily exertions, like lifting little ones, will reinforce keeping it open. Same goes for fitness. The alignment you do fitness in is critical to approximating the abdomen and connective tissue to encourage closure.

What a perfect picture. If you stand, sit or exercise all day with bottom tucked under, hips pushed forward and slumped like the illustration below, your fly zipper will always gape open.

This will never allow for the connective tissue of the linea alba in your belly to come together, always being pulled apart like the open zip. Instead, stand tall with your waists gently lengthened and your ribs stacked beautifully over your neutral level pelvis. You could now picture that your fly will be drawn together, even if you did forget to do it up after that dash to the loo while managing your crying little one in the pram. Aim for this posture as much as you can, and your belly separation will be encouraged to come together. Even more, your diaphragm, your belly muscles, your pelvic floor and your spine will start to work more as it should, becoming stronger and more supportive.

Ab separation will never start to correct in that first year after baby if we are always in a poor posture for most of our days ( The ultimate goal that you want to achieve is a balanced well working system of deep belly, outer belly, pelvic floor, diaphragm and butt muscles). And as Julie has said, with all great intentions at working on this in your gym or Pilates classes, nothing works better than thinking of your posture and the closed zipper for best outcome. Easy. 

So when standing, sitting, feeding, carry baby, pushing prams, at the gym ( after 4 months post baby girls!), cleaning the house, driving the car… remember your belly as the zipper!

Love it!

Why not check out Julie’s website and blog at

http://www.juliewiebept.com/

Draft timetable for our:

• pregnancy pilates
• pilates classes
• beginners pilates