My Journey from Martial Artist to Injury Rehabber

Before coming to Dungannon and opening the Movement Therapy & Injury Management service, I was an S&C guy in Dublin. It was the fitness work that got me into the injury management field. Mostly due, I think to the fact I was a martial artist and martial arts instructor prior to the fitness role.

Having been in the martial arts and my own fitness training most of my life, it made sense to study and take on the role of coach. As the years went by I was lucky enough to work with a great many exceptional people. Amateur athletes in various combat sports, mountain bikers, rugby players, triathletes, climbers and more.

Even the non athletes that trained with me were of that same limit pushing mentality.

This guided my training methods to ensure that these guys trained in a manner that mitigated the risks from their sporting and adventurous hobbies.

This ultimately lead to me attending the first Anatomy in Motion course held in Ireland. Initially I wanted a simple assessment tool. But instead I was taken on a deep dive into human movement and how the body operates.

Slowly I integrated this into my coaching, and after a few years began offering Anatomy in Motions assessements as both a stand alone therapeutic service and as way to examine my athletes and ensure we selected the very best movements for them to use in training so they could be maximally effective in performance.

In Dublin this process made me the preferred referral choice for several physio's to carry on their rehab.

Since moving to Dungannon, I've made the decision to continue in this rehab based field. To focus on the Injury Management rather than the Fitness coaching, although I still program for people through the online training. And this is what my old friend and teacher, the legendary Kettlebell OG himself Steve Cotter wanted to talk to me about for his Instagram "podcast" Steve wanted to ask about this journey from martial artist to doorman, to coach, to rehabber. We chatted for an hour the other day, you can access this here:

https://www.instagram.com/tv/CcWKQTrJ86i/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

I tried embedding the interview, but I can't suss out these long form Instagram things, they don't behave like the usual 60 second clips.

I hope you enjoy the chat, we talk about a range of things related to the human animal.

If you listen, drop me a line to let me know your thoughts, to ask a question about something we talked about or anything else that pops into your mind.

Chat soon

Dave Hedges

www.DaveHedges.net

www.WG-Fit.com

How Often Should I Do My Rehab Exercises?

"How often should I do my exercises?"

This is possibly the most common question I get in clinic when giving clients their homework.

Here's the short answer:

In truth, rehab works in different ways for different stages in injury

Early days, we may be stimulating tissue recovery, so gradual exposure to load, ie stress. This stress stimulates the repair systems to kick in.

It encourages the nervous system to keep that region of the body (probably better to think of it as the brain's perception of that body part) top of mind.

Later, after around 6-10 weeks post injury, any physical healing is likely done with. Bones are healed, muscle sprains are repaired.

So here we're almost certainly either simply building strength back or we're dealing with the brain's perception of the injury site.

Either way, we need to show the brain that the injury site is safe and able to be loaded, so long as we load appropriately.

Too much and we can kick in the brains protection strategies, the very thing we want to get rid of. Too little and there's no change in perception of safety.

So, what does this mean to you doing your rehab drills?

It means little and often.

Do your rehab frequently to keep it "top of mind"

Not top of your already over crowded conscious mind, but top of your subconscious brain map. Here's a representation of that map, the so called Somatic Homunculus:

The idea of this image is to show how much brain "space" is dedicated to the various areas of the body. It's important to understand that any area that isn't used for any length of time comes under threat from neighbouring areas. So an injury may naturally go quiet as we avoid it post injury, think how skinny an arm looks after it comes out a cast. Our rehab then is to "wake up" that area of the brain, to revisit that area of the map.

The more frequently we do this, the better.

It's not necessarily about total volume, just doing 100 reps or so. It's more about doing 1 or more reps multiple times through the day.

And if you are person who is active or that trains, it means integrating the rehab through your activities.

If you have any questions or comments on today's post, please don't hesitate to get in touch.

And if you think this is helpful to anyone you know, please feel free to share.

Regards

Dave Hedges www.DaveHedges.net www.Wg-Fit.com

Meet Your..... Scapula

The Scapula is a fascinating bone that sits in the upper back and is a key component of the shoulder

The shoulder is three bones, the Scapula, Clavicle and Humerus, which is why it's often referred to as the "shoulder complex"

The Scapula is a flat(ish), kinda triangular bone that attaches to both the Humerus and Clavicle.

It slides over the ribcage, but has no ligaments that connected it to the axial skeleton, a fact that will forever amaze me. It connects to the main skeleton via the sternoclavicular joint on the front of the body.

But what the scap does have is seventeen, yes, 17 muscles that attach to it.

Muscles of the Scapula

1. Subscapularis which sits underneath the scap ( "sub" - "Scap...) and attaches to the Lesser Tubercle of the Humerus
   

2. Supraspinatus which runs along the top section of the scapula above the spine and attaches to the Greater Tubercle in upper part of the humerus
   

3. Infraspinatus Covers the lower portion of the scapula below the spine and runs out to the Humerus attaching to the middle facet of the greater tubercle
   

4. Deltoid has three parts, 2 of which attach to the scapula, the rear delt attaches to the spine, the middle delt the acromion, the third section, the anterior delt attaches to the clavicle.
   

5. Latissimus Dorsi attachment varies across the population, but most folk have a good amount of Lat attachment on the bottom "corner" of the scap
   

6. Trapezius Runs along the upper border of the crest of the spine and into medial border of the acromion.
   

7. Serratus anterior comes from the medial border of the scap, that is the edge closest to the spine, and spreads out over several ribs (ribs 1-9), I personally find this muscle fascinating.
   

8. The long head of Biceps Brachii attaches to the coracoid process, which is the smaller, lower of the two projections coming of the top corner of the scap.
   

9. Coracobrachialis sits right beside the long head of the bicep
   

10. Pectoralis minor also joins onto the coracoid process
    

11. The long head of triceps attaches at the infraglenoid tubercle just below the "socket" of the shoulders "ball and socket" set up
    

12. Teres minor comes from the lateral border

13. Teres major runs from the posterior aspect of the inferior angle
    

14. Levator scapulae is another of my favourite muscles in that it is so often found to be tight in so many clients, it comes from the upper part of the medial border of the scap attaching to the upper part of the spine from C1 to C4
    

15. Rhomboideus minor

16. Rhomboideus major These are the Rhomboids that run from the medial border of the scap in an upwards diagonal to the thoracic vertebra, C7 to T5
    

17. Omohyoid muscle is a little known muscle coming from the top of the scap to the hyoid bone that sits atop the trachea (wind pipe).

So you can see the humble scapula is a busy bee.

In terms of function, it's main role is in giving the humerus support as it moves about. Consider just how much we expect from the arm, how much force we put through the shoulder, be it in the gym or in sport. Baseball seems to have a huge amount of research on the forces involved at the shoulder in throwing, and talk of various forces in the region of 300N and 400N of shear, grater than 1000N of compression. For the non science folk, 1000 Newtons is a touch over 100KG

A huge part of the reason our relatively unstable, yet highly mobile shoulder can handle these stresses is the scapula and it's many muscle attachments.

So what are our practical takeaways?

The scapula moves:

Up and Down, think shrugging. We call this elevation & depression Protract, ie rounding the shoulders forward and Retract, pulling the shoulders back Upward and Downward rotation, think lifting your arms up overhead and back down. And they can tilt to some degree anterior and posteriorly.

non of these movements happen on their own or in isolation, all movement is a combination of the listed patterns, but more importantly is the timing with the other bones and joints. The Humerus or upper arm bone moves with the scapula and the clavicle. The ability of the scap to move can be hugely affected by the spine and ribcage, after all the ribcage is the "road" that the scap "drives on"

Have a look at this video from the Muscle and motion guys:

In all my years as a Fitness and Performance Coach, all my years working in Injury Management, the scapula has never failed to fascinate me. This bone IS upper body strength and movement. Substandard motion and timing in this bone is very common cause / symptom for upper body pain and injury.

Any questions, comments or suggestions you have, drop them in a comment or email, I'd love to hear them.

Better yet, book in and I'll see you in clinic or online.

All the best

Dave Hedges www.DaveHedges.net