Conditions of the Leg

Sometimes the low back/SI joint gets confused with the hip. For the sake of this conversation, I will be talking about the ball and socket joint of the hip.

Hip pain persists due to many factors. There are many conditions that affect the hip, from congenital bone/joint deformation, intra-articular problems like labral tears, bursitis, hip pointers, hip flexor tears/pain, or snapping hip syndromes. The hip is a very large joint and is unique in that it must remain strong as well as mobile. It is both the lack of mobility as well as too much mobility that lead to most chronic hip pain and injury. However, even with “proper” care people still aren’t getting better.

This is why:

Muscle inhibition  is a major cause  of hip problems! Think of the powerful muscles of the hip: gluteal muscles, hip flexors, even some quadriceps attach and/or cross the hip.

*Low back muscles as well as ankle muscles/joints also affect the hip but we will save that for a later discussion*

Dependent on the activity, these powerful muscles are meant to engage to their fullest capacity. When they don’t, something has to give, and guess what it is…….the joint.

What Parker Muscle & Sports Clinic does is use a unique assessment and treatment approach that can identify specific muscle and muscle fibers that are not doing their job and result in imbalance and eventual hip degradation, pain, and/or injury.

Hips get better at Parker Muscle & Sports Clinic!

Knee conditions and knee pain affect a lot of people, especially people who are active and want to remain so. The knee is a big joint and causes significant disability if not working properly. The overall prevalence of knee pain was 46.2% in men and women in a well-published study done in 2011. The World Health Organization predicted that knee osteoarthritis (a common knee diagnosis) would be the fourth leading cause of disability by 2020.

Even with the large prevalence of knee pain, advances in medical care, basic knowledge of exercise, and physical therapy people still have knee pain and disability EVEN after getting “proper” care. Knees aren’t getting better. Here’s why:

An all too-commonly missed factor in knee pain is muscle inhibition . Even with great physical therapy and targeted exercise, if a knee muscle is neurologically inhibited it will not fire at capacity. The knee will compensate through the movement necessary to do exercises and activities and may even strengthen and pain may dissipate. However, over days/months/years this compensation may lead to chronic damages and the pain will return. People just don’t know muscles can become inhibited. Inhibited muscles cannot be activated through exercise, surgery, massage, or most typical muscle and skeletal approaches.

At Parker Muscle and Sports Clinic, we target the exact muscles and joints that do not function at full capacity through a unique assessment and therapy. We can tell you exact fibers of specific muscles that are inhibited leading to your pain, weakness, and disability. We have had great success with athletic knee injuries both acute and chronic, post-surgical knee pain/weakness, chronic knee issues such as patellar tendonitis, osteoarthritis, Os-Good Schlatter’s disease, IT band syndrome disease, and many other common causes of knee pain.

Barring any major tears, disease, or severe trauma we can fix your knees!

Ankle pain and injury can be a debilitating problem, especially in athletics. Why aren’t ice, electrical stimulation, rehab, or injections solving common ankle pain issues? Temporary ankle pain may be going away but chronic/repetitive ankle injury and can pain persist for months and years afterward. Ankle pain keeps people young and old from playing their favorite sports. Why aren’t ankles getting better? Why aren’t advancements in medicine getting ankles better faster?

Here is why ankles aren’t getting better:

Muscle Inhibition  of the fibularis muscles, tibialis muscles, as well as any muscle attaching to or crossing the ankle joint lead to additional instability of this joint. If the ligaments of the ankle are sprained, this is called gross instability. This is why it is painful to walk on a freshly sprained ankle.

The most common ankle injury is an inversion sprain. A few lateral ligaments of the ankle may be stretched and sprained. In addition, the lateral ankle muscle, called the fibularis muscle, will be stretched violently and as a result, inhibit. If rested in this state the ligament pain will eventually go away and heal. However, the fibularis muscle will stay inhibited and not contract as designed. That leads to chronic ankle sprains and what some call “weak ankles”.

The ankle joint itself is traumatized and twisted. If left in that position will also be a pain generator. This is why it is so hard to walk days after a simple sprain.

But, there is good news!! The body can heal very quickly if all the essential elements are present. Ankles are no different.

This is what we do:

At Parker Muscle & Sports Clinic we address the misalignment of the ankle joint and related joints, ensuring they move appropriately as designed. We evaluate the muscles of the ankle for muscle inhibition and fix the appropriate muscles. Even though the ankle ligaments remain sprained, you can walk and maybe even run and jump out of our office on your first appointment. When proper joint motion and muscular stability are restored walking running and moving become therapeutic.

*Ankle fractures, severe sprains greater than a grade II and other severe pathologies of the ankle joints will not respond as described above. However, we are trained to help you diagnose these problems*