Muscular Compensation | Apana Bodywork Muscle Activation Techniques

I’m Training my client at the gym and no matter how many times I would say “don’t let your knee dive in” during a squat, it didn’t make a difference! This is bad form that cannot be corrected with proper cueing. No matter how hard my client tried she could not stop her knee from dropping in. I became curious as to why this was happening. In the first day of the Muscle Activation Techniques (MAT) internship they explained how the body compensates or works around a (neurological) weakness as a form of protection from injury or instability. The body avoids positions of weakness and favors positions of strength as a safeguard. That made so much sense!

The Body’s Goal is to Protect, Conserve and Heal

And if it can’t heal, it will continue to protect in as many ways as possible for as long as possible. When a person squats and their knee dives in, there must be a muscular weakness/inhibition that they are avoiding, and as a result, the body is favoring a position of strength and taking a “detour” around the position(s) of weakness.

Why Do Muscles Become Weak?

Before we can talk about muscular compensation we need to quickly address why muscles become neurologically weak or inhibited in the first place. How do muscles become neurologically weak in the first place? Stress, trauma and overuse shut down the connection between the brain and muscle rendering muscle contraction less efficient and effective or completely absent. This connection is necessary for proper muscle function. Net effect: your muscles won’t contract when you need them to or may not contract at all. This makes you vulnerable to injury because you are more unstable. This may not seem like a big deal but wait until one weakness stacks on to another and the entire functioning of your body is affected because your body is compensating around weak muscles.

The Nervous System Finds Ways to Work Around the Weaknesses

Most people are shocked to find out that not all their muscles are contracting perfectly. The objections I hear are: “But I work out!” Or “I feel fine!” How can we function if this is the case? The reason we get around so well is that our nervous systems find ways to work around the weaknesses. Like a road closure that makes you take the long way around, the ‘detour’ your body takes to avoid the weakness isn’t as efficient. It may look odd and could even be causing imbalances at your joints but it gets the job done. Over time, joints can easily get worn out when muscles aren’t doing their job. It can even render simple activities painful. Compensation is a work-around that is necessary until we activate those weak links and get back to our proper biomechanical functioning.

Returning Functionality Back to Those Muscles with MAT

Once we get muscle function back, your joints are more balanced taking the stress off of them and for most, decreasing pain and stiffness and increasing motion. Post treatment mostly everyone reports feeling different when they walk. They have also observed feeling looser, more agile and the complaint they came in with typically changes in quality and severity and this progresses over subsequent treatments. The way your body feels improves gradually over the course of treatments and you begin to feel relief.

Many clients haven’t returned because the problem they came in with is gone. For others, they drive their bodies like race cars and as a result need more maintenance. They come in to maintain their alignment, strength and overall sense of well-being while pushing the boundaries of what their bodies can handle. Wouldn’t you love to be stronger now than you were when you were 20? That’s a great feeling.

MAT specializes in your muscular system in a way that is going to speed healing from injury, surgery, patellar-femoral syndrome, arthritis, scoliosis, degenerative joint disease, (DJD), bursitis, even ‘sleeping funny’ can be alleviated by re-connecting your muscles. The impact of the muscular system is huge. It is the largest organ in your body and its proper function has cascading effects over your entire system.

In a nutshell when you get a MAT session the specialist will find out what you can’t do. We then restore proper muscle function and reinforce those habits and motions that will speed healing. There is no treatment out there that assesses and treats the muscular system with such focus. If you’re struggling with an injury or want to try to avoid surgery or if you just have a bad shoulder, neck, ankle MAT is right for you, contact Apana Bodywork and find out how we can pave the road to health.

Madeleine Dasilva
Certified Muscle Activation Specialist & Reiki Master and Teacher