Unlocking Shoulder Efficiency: Overcoming Post-Surgery Limitations

The complexity of the human body is nothing short of fascinating, particularly when it comes to understanding how our muscles and nerves work together to produce movement. The interplay of strength, coordination, and neural signaling forms the foundation for physical performance.

In this in-depth insight, we explore the relationship between muscle strength and neural communication through the journey of Clance, an athlete demonstrating remarkable progress after a previous injury.

Understanding the Injury and Recovery

Clance’s story begins with an impressive strength milestone—bench pressing over 300 pounds—despite a past injury involving a tear in the clavicular head caused during an altercation. Post-surgery, Clance has regained his physical prowess, lifting 310 pounds comfortably. However, the underlying question remains: Is Clance accessing his full potential?

Engaging Beyond Just Strength

Even while exhibiting substantial recovery, there remains untapped potential in Clance’s muscular engagement. Our goal is to examine his capacity to activate various muscle fibers in the pectorals, especially when coordinated movement and strength are essential, such as in sports requiring explosive actions.

The tests conducted show Clance’s robust ability to produce power in certain positions, but highlight areas where resistance leads to less impressive outcomes. This situation isn’t about lacking strength; it’s about the body’s system efficiently processing information and seamlessly engaging muscles when required.

Addressing Coordination and Communication

The primary issue lies not in Clance’s muscle strength but in how the body’s network synthesizes and responds to stimuli. In dynamic sports activities—whether throwing, punching, or swinging—the ability to coordinate and move efficiently is paramount.

Using a targeted intervention strategy, we aim to enhance this coordination through direct stimulation of specific nerves. This approach is nonlinear, emphasizing prompt recovery and functional capacity restoration rather than traditional, time-intensive rehabilitation processes.

The Impact of Neural Stimulation

A pivotal moment in Clance’s journey involved a simple, yet effective, nerve stimulation technique. A single needle and a 30-second stimulation period later, Clance performed the resistance test again, boasting noticeably improved strength. This demonstration highlights the importance of restoring effective communication between receptors and muscles.

By optimizing neural signals, Clance efficiently recruits and engages all muscle fibers around the shoulder joint. The emphasis lies on those innervated by the musculocutaneous nerve, achieving controlled and synergistic movement to meet the athletic demands placed upon his shoulders.

Conclusion: Beyond Muscles – A Holistic Approach

Athletic performance transcends physical strength alone. It requires a harmonious blend of coordination, neural efficiency, and muscle engagement. Through Clance’s experience, we see that unlocking one’s full potential isn’t solely about breaking physical barriers but ensuring the body’s internal messaging system functions seamlessly.

This approach underscores the necessity of understanding the interplay between strength, coordination, and neural processes. It’s this interconnectedness that ultimately fosters efficient, powerful, and injury-resilient movement, paving the way for athletes to reach new heights.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPTION:

Clance here is still benching over 300 pounds. Previous clavicular head tear, you can see he had surgery for it.

I tore it in a fight. Actually. I reached back, somebody grabbed me and the bouncer grabbed me in a aggressive way.

grabbing by his neck and that’s all. That’s how I tore.

I want to show how even though he demonstrates full, strength there’s still some potential that he’s not accessing. So, I want to Try to do an assessment or an examination of his ability to engage various fibers in his pecs.

I’m gonna get him to drive towards your opposite hip, that way, go ahead. No, the other way. There we go. So that’s no issue, no problem. See how much he can generate. I’m giving him my all, he’s giving his all. Now I’m gonna go at this angle, go ahead, and how easily I can move it that way.

So I’m gonna do another one. I’m gonna get you to go this way. against my resistance. Go ahead. And a little bit harder, but I can get him to budge again. This is not indicating his strength. He has no problem. He’d go in there bench over 300 pounds. In fact, he did it this morning. 310. That’s not the issue.

The issue is how well his system can take in information, understand the loads and demands being put on it. And very quickly, spontaneously, synergistically, smoothly, rhythmically engaged to provide good coordination around that shoulder. If not addressed it’ll affect this athlete whenever they’re having to do explosive stuff.

If you’re a thrower, if you’re a puncher, if you’re a swinger, there’s a lack of ability to coordinate movement in a smooth, efficient fashion. I’m just going to do one quick needle to demonstrate this is not a strength issue and there isn’t necessarily a linear requirement of intervention and by that I mean.

You need to do X for Y length of time to get Z results. We’re going to approach it in a nonlinear way to show how quickly we can restore, capacity around the shoulder girdle.

with that shoulder, I’m just going to do one needle and retest just to see,

I always tell people it takes 200 hours to fully understand and appreciate what’s happening in the body, but I’ll try to. Simplify it in a moment, I’m just going to stim it for 30 seconds and then we’re going to retest one of those tests that I did, just to show you that.

I just did gentle stimulation of a particular nerve. So I want you to do this test for me again. So you’re going to come this way against my resistance. Go ahead.

Does that feel different for you? It feels stronger. Yeah, like that guy, I was easily able to budge before. But that’s what I mean. It’s just a matter of restoring good communication signals that’s happening between all the receptors that are taking in information. And then, having it all converge and synthesize and provide good output.

In this case, output looks like the ability to recruit, engage all the surrounding muscle fibers around the shoulder joint, specifically the ones innerrated by the musculocutaneous nerve, in a controlled and synergistic way, so there’s efficient movement. An efficient ability to generate force and meet the demands that are put on the shoulder.