What is scar tissue?
What injuries cause scar tissue?
What are the disadvantages of scar tissue?
What can be done?
What is scar tissue? Scar tissue is like human glue that sticks to muscles, tendons, ligaments, fascia, nerves, and arteries. Scar tissue is laid down by a cell called a fibroblast. It is activated when you cause damage tissue.
What injuries cause scar tissue? Acute Injury. You can suffer from an acute injury such as tearing a muscle or ligament, such as a sprain/strain. Or you can suffer from trauma. Your body immediately goes into an inflammatory state and fibroblasts get to work by laying down scar tissue to "stabilize" the area. Unfortunately this leads to the Cumulative Injury Cycle. This is why an injury to one area of the body can cause a repetitive motion injury somewhere else. For example, a prior ankle sprain can cause hip pain in a runner. Repetitive motion, poor posture and constant pressure/tension. These types of injuries can also cause the laying down of adhesions by not giving your tissues enough rest. For example, lets consider a person working constantly on a computer, not, only are the forearms under constant contraction, but the neck muscles are constantly contracted to hold up the head. This is even more exaggerated if the computer worker sits with poor posture such as forward head, a hunched upper back, and rounded shoulders.
What are the disadvantages of scar tissue? Unfortunately, scar tissue is not as tensile and strong as regular, healthy tissue...this starts the cumulative injury cycle. What will you experience?* pain* restrictions* reduced range of motion* dysfunction - since scar tissue delays the activation of your muscles
You are probably wondering what can I do?
* Active Release Technique/Graston = break up the scar tissue
* Physical therapy = exercises to correct any imbalances, weakness, dysfunction, poor posture, or reduced range of motion
* Massage therapy = once a month to prevent injuries
