HUMAN KNEE ANATOMY

When overuse occurs, nerve entrapments, muscle adhesion, inflammation and scar tissue, carpal tunnel and impingement syndrome, among many other problems, can manifest. This is because overuse causes injury or other situations where the tissue actually changes detrimentally in three important ways.

· First of all, the tissue itself does not get enough oxygen, a condition also called "hypoxia."

· Second of all, there can be an accumulation of small tears, also called a micro-trauma.

· And third of all, this can cause acute conditions, such as pulls, tears, and collisions.

No matter the cause, what happens is that these three types of changes cause the body to heal by producing tough, dense scar tissue in the area that has been injured, which replaces the healthy tissue. The scar tissue itself then binds up the surrounding tissues, so that they can no longer move freely. As more scar tissue builds up, muscles themselves can become shorter and weaker. Scar tissue in not as strong and stable as healthy tissue, there for an advanced massage therapist is needed to help break down muscle adhesions and scar tissue.

Without treatment this results in tension on tendons, which in turn causes tendinitis, and nerves can become "trapped." This in turn can cause pain, loss of strength, and reduced range of motion. In some cases, when a nerve becomes trapped, you can also feel numbness, tingling or weakness.

A massage therapist who uses these ART techniques can help clients with these muscles adhesions and scar tissue [http://think-diagonal.com/2008/03/04/massage-therapy-techniques-for-scar-tissue-removal/] build up, that restrict proper muscle function. When one receives ART treatment, a therapist first evaluates the tenderness, tightness and texture of underlying tissues, such as the fascia, muscles, tendons, nerves and ligaments. Then, the therapist provides specific advanced massage therapy techniques along with ART techniques.

This type of treatment is effective because a trained therapist can break up the scar tissue causing the nerve entrapment, reduced carpal tunnel syndrome symptoms, nerve impingement or muscle adhesions. The therapist directs very specific tension at the affected area usually focusing on or around muscle attachments and the patient works in tandem with the therapist by moving in specific ways to help break up the scar tissue.

There are over 500 different movements specifically in ART that is meant to break down the scar tissue, muscle tension and entrapped nerves. For example, with carpal tunnel syndrome, the median nerve is trapped in scar tissue (also known as "nerve entrapment), which has been caused by repetitive movement, a poor diet or a host of many other inflammation causing factors. Carpal Tunnel Syndrome also known as "cumulative injury," because the injury itself (in this case, entrapment to the median nerve) occurs over a period of time. In many cases, ART can reduce or eliminate the need for surgery to correct these problems and restore function.

Impingement syndrome can also be helped with ART.

Another type of injury, impingement syndrome, occurs when those who do a lot of lifting have pain in the shoulder area. Most often, care for this problem involves having surgery to shave off a small part of the rotator cuff and make it flat, ensuring that there's nothing to "catch" the muscle or muscle adhesion on. However, most often, the problem is in the muscle itself and not in the rotator cuff, so ART can cure this problem if the problem is indeed occurring in the muscle and not in the rotator cuff itself. This determination needs to be carefully identified before any massage therapy or ART treatments are implemented. Be sure to seek a professional massage therapist who is certified in ART techniques and has a very firm knowledge of the human anatomy.

Now switching over to another topic just for a moment, let me talk about curiosity. We are nosy creatures by habit, and thrive on learning interesting things. It doesn't matter on what topic for the most part, if has something to do with us either direct or indirectly, then we want to here it. Only however if it simple to understand.

Now back to the skeletal system. This is definitely all about us, in fact it is us. Its not up to someone else to look after what belongs to us. The human anatomy is really not nearly as complex as we make it out to be. That statement only holds true for those that are not doing an in-depth study of the body. In those cases, yes it is complex, but not beyond understanding. Its just a matter of how much knowledge is necessary for the purpose we need it for. So in the case of the individual that wants to go into the medical profession, he needs a lot more knowledge than the average person who just want to take care of what he owns. Namely our body.

So not only are we going to talk about some interesting facts about your bones, we are going to learn some things that are important to our everyday living. Do you know that you have been losing things from your skeletal system over the years?

When you were born you had about 350 brand new bones. Now if you could peek inside yourself you'd count around 206 or so. That's 90 less then what you started with. You know darn well you haven't had any surgery that removed 90 of your bones, and you also know that you were born perfectly healthy. This truly is a mystery, and now you're curious. Well actually it really isn't all that much of a mystery. Many of our bones simply fuse together throughout out lifespan. Part of the reason this happens is so those bones fusing together, can perform the functions we need as adults, which we didn't require as children.

Here is another point that may be of interest. Most of us reach our peak bone density or strength around the age of 20. So the adage that its "all down hill after 40" is misleading. Now don't let this thought depress you, and lead you to think that now that you're past twenty that you are past the prime of you life. It simply means that you need to ensure you are taking care of your body. particularly your skeletal system right from that age on. Not waiting till you reach 40 before you start thinking about what's good for your bones.

Lets cover one more interesting fact. There are so many to choose from its hard to decide which to share with you. How about those starvation diets that many of us have tried at some point in our life. We figure whatever damage they could cause is temporary right? Not so. you are damaging your bones because they are not being nourished properly. Who knows what lasting effects this could have.

So a little bit of basic knowledge about the body can mean a lot of good health through the years. You have to admit that some of the facts we covered here were quite interesting and did raise your curiosity.

The newspaper clipping my client sent me came from Melbourne's "The Age" (12/7/2009) and was written by Gary Tippet on this exact topic. It stated that Professor Neville Owen, of Behavior Health at University of Queensland claims that too much sitting is associated with a unique sedentary physiology. According to his study, cells in the muscles start putting out signals and chemicals into the blood that cascade up through a series of changes to things like unhealthy triglyceride patterns, too much glucose. He also claims that long periods of sitting are also a likely factor in heart disease and breast and bowel cancers.

As a species, the Homosapien has been around for approximately 2 million years. "Lucy" one of the first primate fossils discovered that had the pelvic and femur joint of a "bipedal" (up on two legs) species was dated as being approximately 4 million years old.

Paul Chek a world renowned Holistic Lifestyle Exercise Practitioner describes seven primal movement patterns for the human species. These include, squat, lunge, push, pull, bend, twist and gait (walk, jog, and run). You'll note that sitting down was not one of those patterns and this is because our physical make up was never designed to sit down.

Archaeology tells us that the first time our species ever sat in chairs was only 14,000 years ago, when ancient Aztec's had the highest people (their rulers) sit on thrones. So when you think about it, in terms of evolution, 14,000 years is only a very small period of time and so, we have yet to fully evolve into a "sitting" species, but we are getting there.

Over the past 100 years, our lifestyle evolved so much though that we can almost perform an entire day's activities in the seated position. That's a total of our entire waking life, sitting down.

This causes all sorts of problems because as we haven't yet evolved to cope with all this sitting.

Lets have a quick anatomy lesson to see how sitting all day affects your posture. Even sitting in a perfectly designed ergonomic chair, it is physically impossible to maintain perfect posture for your entire seated work day. Sitting down invokes what is known in the fitness industry as the "Double Flexed" Position. Flexed at the hip and flexed at the knee.

Flexion is simply an anatomical term used to describe when the angle at a joint is decreased. When we stand upright our hip and knee joint are at 180 degrees. When we sit down, both of these joints are held at 90 degrees, they are both reduced and therefore they are flexed.

An issue with maintaining this constant state of flexion is that the muscles that cross over these two joints on the shortened side of the angle become short and tight, often causing a muscular imbalance within the body, thus affecting posture. Correspondingly, on the other side of the joint, there are balancing muscles that will become longer than normal and therefore weaker as a result. Remember muscles are similar in properties to rubber bands, if it's stretched, it's weaker. These muscles that shorten include the hip flexors, superficial abdominals, quads and hamstrings. The muscles that become longer and weaker can include the Glutes (that's your backside) and lower back.

So, sitting all day can shorten and tighten some major muscles and stretch and weaken others. That's one major downside to sitting all day.

What else is detrimentally wrong with sitting? (Posture related that is) For those of you who spend the majority of your time behind a computer as part of your working life, then there are other postural issues, that I'm about to describe. Spending all day in front of a computer screen causes your shoulders to roll forward towards the screen. This causes your chest muscles to become short and tight. On the opposite side, muscles including your rhomboids and middle trapezius become stretched and weak. This rounded shoulder position can decrease your ability to take deeper breaths than normal thus requiring you to breathe more often.

Also, staring at a computer screen all day can lead to your eye sight fatiguing leading to people often squint to see the words on the screen. A by product of this is that people will move their head closer to the screen to re-focus and this can lead to what we call forward head carriage, or poke neck.

(This is a syndrome, when your chin arrives in the room 5 mins before the rest of you) Next time you are out and about, see if you can spot someone with this affliction and look at the position of their head in relation to their shoulders. So what you ask? Well if you think about it, your head is attached to your body via your neck. In fact 8% of your body weight is contained in your head. Here's an experiment for you when you are next in the gym. Take an 8kg medicine ball and hold it in the palm of your hand directly overhead.

Now without bending your arm, move the medicine ball 5 degrees forward of your head line. How much heavier did the medicine ball just become? Like all postural imbalances, muscles on the front of your neck become short and tight and conversely, muscles on the back of your neck become long or stretched and weak. This particular condition, if left undiagnosed and untreated can lead to severe postural issues further down your spine because your head is considered the most important part of your body and so in order to compensate for any deviations from normal, your body will make adjustments down the spine to compensate for your heads position, however, this is the topic of another article. That's another major downside to sitting all day.

I've left the most obvious downside to sitting all day to last and that is, sitting all day reduces your calorie expenditure and is probably the leading cause of obesity today. When you move less (i.e. sit all day) but don't adjust your calorie intake downwards, you gain body fat. Compound this simple equation (calories in more than calories out equals body fat gain) by eating more refined sugars and more saturated fat and your weight gain propensity explodes uncontrollably upward. I don't have the time to detail the downsides of obesity. There's ample information out there outlining all of the major causes of death today are related to obesity.

So, what have we learned so far?

1. Sitting all day creates postural imbalances that can lead to decreased range of movement (motion) with various muscles
2. This can lead to a decreased ability to perform our primal movement patterns of squat, lunge pull, push, bend, twist and gait
3. Leading to a reduction in every day functioning.
4. It also can lead to a reduction in calorie expenditure, increasing the chances of gaining body fat.

So, are we all doomed? I don't believe we are. I've got some very simple strategies to help you minimise the effects of sitting all day, that A; won't deviate your daily activity from what it is today, meaning they should be reasonably easy to implement and maintain without too much trouble, B; they won't cost the earth and C; are time efficient for today's time poor person. SO, here they are:

1. If you drive to work, park 5 minutes away from your workplace and spend the extra 5 minutes walking to the office. As you become used to this walk, you can choose to park further away until such time as time constraint prevents you from parking too far away.

2. If you catch public transport, try and avoid sitting all the way. Stand up 5 minutes earlier than your proposed stop, again enabling you to stretch. Better still, get off one stop early and walk the extra distance.

3. When using escalators, don't stand still. Even though they are moving up or down, continue to walk on them. If you find your path obstructed by someone standing still, politely say "excuse me please" and you'll find they will step aside and allow you to pass. This applies to travelators at airports. By all means use them but continue to walk while on them, that way you continue to move.

4. Once you get to work, sitting down can't be helped, because you have a work station, but the length of time spent sitting can be broken down into more manageable bite sized chunks. Where's your printer located? Is it in your office? Can your default printer be changed to another one on the floor further away from you? If so, change your default printer forcing you up out of your chair so that you have to get up and walk.

5. Where is the water fountain? Is there more than one on your floor? If so, refill your water bottle from one furthest away.

6. Likewise for toilets. Do you have a choice? Can you use the one further away from you? If you drink your required amount of water per day, (that's the topic of an article on its own) you should be forced to go to the toilet a few times a day, thus creating the need to get up out of your chair.

7. Why do board meetings, staff meetings and other formalized gatherings at the workplace have to be conducted sitting down? Why can't they be done standing up? This will encourage them to be more productive and kept to shorter time frame, thus minimizing the time spent "in meetings".

8. If you work in a building with multiple floors, avoid using the lifts. Some may find this difficult, so my suggestion here is to get off a floor short of your destination and walk one floor up or down. Then as you become used to this, slowly increase the distance you walk.

9. Once you're home at night time and want to sit down to watch TV, don't sit on the couch, grab yourself a pillow, lie on the floor and do some relaxing stretches. It's a fantastic way to unwind after a long day at the office and you'll slowly wind down.

10. When sitting down for dinner, enjoy this family time. Turn off the TV, put away books and newspapers and spend some quality time with the family. Talk about the day's activities; who did what etc and re-bond with your family.

So, all is not lost. Implement what I've shown you here and you can certainly make a difference to your "incidental moving" equation and this will lead you down the path to a healthier and longer life.

An important point to remember though is that simply moving more is not enough on its own. You'll need to introduce some form of exercise routine, perhaps make some nutritional adjustments, reduce your stress levels, perhaps improved your sleep patterns all of which I can help you with.

For more information on what I've covered here, please don't hesitate to contact me. So until next time,