Often times people experience weak muscles after an injury. They think they need to get stronger again. And so they go to a physical therapist or a personal trainer. However, they do not have weak muscles. They have muscles that have turned off.
Muscle is controlled by your brain. Your brain tells your muscles to contract and then you are able to move your muscle. But there are times when your brain turns off muscles. This is called Central Inhibition.
If you tear the meniscus in your knee and keep moving your knee, you will do further damage to the meniscus. So your brain will turn off, or at least turn down, the muscles around your knee. This will make walking harder, but it will also prevent you from doing further damage to the area. This is very helpful in the case of injury!
This will also happen if your brain perceives the possibility of damage in an area. It will turn off some of the muscles to prevent the possibility of damage.
Sometimes the muscles only need to be turned off (or “inhibited”) for a short period to time to prevent damage. If you trip and hurt your ankle—you might have sprained your ankle or you might have just come close to spraining it. Either way the muscles may turn off to keep you from further injuring yourself.
The problem arises when your brain doesn’t turn those muscles back on. Chiropractic is uniquely good decreasing central inhibition and helping your brain remember to turn muscles back on.
If you are experiencing weakness after pain or injury, call Cora! We help a lot of people regain their strength by getting their muscles reactivated.
