Recovering from Knee Surgeries: Addressing Underlying Issues Beyond Rehab

In the world of athletic performance, recovery from injuries often focuses solely on repairing damaged structures. Yet, many overlook an equally critical component: addressing the body’s faulty behavioral patterns that may linger post-surgery. This holistic approach not only restores physical health but enhances athletic potential, ensuring peak performance and less likelihood of re-injury.

The Overlooked Aspects of Recovery

Imagine an athlete, who after two knee surgeries, is diving back into the world of weightlifting. They’ve regained full range of motion and are relatively pain-free, justifying a green light for their return to training. However, an important layer is often neglected—correcting the body’s inherent ability to process and execute motor commands efficiently. Despite the successful surgical interventions, if these underlying “software” issues within the body’s movement patterns are not addressed, the potential for suboptimal performance and re-injury remains high.

Identifying the Underlying Issues

One practical example involves assessing an athlete’s hip flexion. A simple maneuver can reveal whether the limb can generate power efficiently. During this assessment, if the leg feels easily movable despite the athlete’s maximum effort, it points to a deficit in the body’s ability to coordinate synergistic movements.

For athletes in explosive sports, such inefficiencies can make their movements feel sluggish or heavy on the field. The goal then becomes not just returning to training, but ensuring that every nuance of motor control and coordination is addressed.

Practical Techniques to Enhance Performance

During rehabilitation, precise techniques can be deployed to engage the nervous system and improve motor control. For instance, applying stimulation around sensitive areas, such as scars, can help rewire the motor coordination disrupted by nociceptive signaling. This, in turn, helps the body naturally manage forces and coordinate smooth, efficient movements.

One such practical application involves stimulating the femoral nerve, observed as it significantly enhances hip flexor strength. Within minutes of targeted input, previously sluggish muscles begin to exhibit strength and coordination that were missing pre-intervention.

Moving Towards Optimum Athleticism

The implications of such interventions are profound. Athletes returning to the gym may find themselves lifting heavier weights due to an overall improved response in their body’s motor coordination. On the field, enhanced proprioception means a more explosive start, leading to better performance.

Understanding that these interventions can sometimes achieve immediate changes underpins the importance of a tailored approach to recovery. While some athletes may require just a single session, others might need repeated interventions to fully rewire and reinforce these improved patterns.

In conclusion, athletic recovery is more than just healing injuries; it’s about optimizing the body’s intricate motor systems to unlock true potential. By recognizing and addressing these hidden barriers, athletes can enjoy not only a fruitful return to sports but a sustained explosion in performance. Embracing this holistic approach ensures that post-injury, the athlete isn’t just back in the game but is ready to play at the highest level.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPTION:

Alright, we got, the athlete’s coach over here. Two past knee surgeries, back to squatting heavy weights, and all that. This is often what’s missed when people get surgical treatment, the structures that are torn or damaged get addressed, but the underlying faulty, behavior of the body isn’t.

I’m going to get him to hold his leg here. He’s going to drive into hip flexion against me. Go ahead as hard as you can, Clance. I’m not giving much effort, he’s giving it his all effort, and I’m able to easily and effortlessly move this leg. This is often something that’s missed in orthopedic rehab.

The joint’s okay, they got full range of motion back, they’re relatively pain free, so they’re allowed to go back to training, and then there’s, what’s not addressed is this underlying sort of software issue in the body, an inability to process good information to provide good synergistic motor coordination and output.

So an athlete who’s in a explosive sport, whatever that explosive sport is, is going to notice that this leg may not generate the same amount of power. It’ll feel sluggish. It’ll feel heavy. So we’re going to try to address that with him today. I just want to point out the deficiencies and how they may look.

Even if someone is not experiencing pain or any issues with it.

I get it dude, I get it. As long as I don’t look at it.

Okay, this is going to be Motherfucker, I feel that one. No, right there where you’re going. Here we go. This is going to be a big one. Yeah, how did I know? I’m just going to put a little bit of stim through just to make sure I’m in the right spot. You’ll feel your whole quad if we’re Oh, yes!

Okay, I’m just going to leave that guy there. I hate that shit. Okay. At least you did it good. First I did it like almost, I felt like my leg was gonna friggin tear off. In the courses I tell people there’s two things. A, knowing where to put your needle. And B, being skilled at doing needle insertion so it’s comfortable for the patient.

Okay, I’m gonna start these ones around your scar. It’ll probably be tappy. Let me know if you feel it and if it’s comfortable. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So this would be more stronger contraction around here and up there, let me know. I’ll start gentle at first, that’s okay?

Yeah. I’ll just stay gentle. Is that okay? It’s not achy or uncomfortable or anything, is it? No, we’ll just leave that there. I’m just anticipating. So I’m just gonna adjust this a little bit. I didn’t adjust it. He’s fine, right? Yeah. He’s fine.

There we go. That’s good. We’ll leave that there.

Okay, so we just worked on those things. And if, what I was suggesting that there’s disruption and good processing of input coming in and that’s disrupting good motor control, motor activity, Yeah. We should see a difference right now. So I’m going to go back and, test his hip flexion.

Hold your leg up here, drive into me as hard as you can. Before it was like butter, I was able to push it down. Now I got to actually fight. So that’s like eight minutes of us giving some input to the femoral nerve. Improving some of the nociceptive signaling from the scar that was disrupting motor coordination, just working on that, to try to restore the underlying body’s ability to naturally deal with forces, naturally coordinate movement, and, and there’s like there’s a complex phenomenon going in the body.

We just have to distinguish where the input is disrupting the body’s natural ability to move efficiently and smoothly. And deal with that, which is what we tried to do right here. So we see an immediate change. And how this will manifest, for an athlete is they’ll go back in the gym and feel stronger, be able to lift heavier weight because the body’s now moving a little more efficiently, or they’ll get on the field and feel more explosive coming out of the blocks or out of a stance because things are just a little more efficient, better response rate, good proprioception going on in the body.

So that’s all we did. In some instances, you just need to do this once. In some instances, you need to. Repeat it a few times to reestablish good response within the body.