The Physiology of Why Chiropractic Adjustments Are Necessary

The 24 vertebrae and interlaying discs of the spinal column protect your bodies’ most important and delicate system, the central nervous system, and impingements within the joints of your spinal column can contribute to a number of health problems and ailments.

Over time the human body can and will experience static malalignments that alter the optimal resting length and tension of the muscles within the musculoskeletal system. Common static malalignments include joint fixation and myofascial adhesions that lead to or can be caused by poor posture.

- Poor posture and repetitive movements can create dysfunction within the connective tissue of the human movement system

- This dysfunction is treated by the body as an injury and will initiate a repair process termed the cumulative injury cycle

- Any trauma to the tissue of the body creates inflammation. Inflammation in turn activates the body’s pain receptors and initiates a protective mechanism, increasing muscle tension and causing muscle spasm.

- These muscle spasms are not like a calf cramp. Heightened activity of muscle spindles in particular areas of the muscle create, in essence, a microspasm.

- As a result of the spasm, adhesions (“knots” or “trigger points”) will begin to form in the soft tissue. These adhesions form a weak, inelastic (unable to stretch) matrix that decreases normal elasticity of the soft tissue

- Left unchecked, these adhesions can begin to form permanent structural changes in the soft tissue that are evident by Davis’s law¹  which states  that soft tissue will model along the lines of stress.

- Soft tissue remodels or rebuilds itself with an inelastic collagen matrix that forms in a random fashion. This simply means that it usually does not run in the same direction as the muscle fibers. If the muscle fibers are lengthened, these inelastic connective tissue fibers are acting as roadblocks, not allowing the muscle fibers to move properly. This creates alterations in normal tissue extensibility and causes relative inflexibility

- Because of the large number of joints in the spine and the tremendous demand upon the spine for motion, muscle contraction for stabilization is particularly important, and when excessive, can result in hypomobile joints.

Joint dysfunction (a.k.a. hypomobility) is one of the most common causes of pain in the human body. 

- The zygapophyseal, or facet, joints are complicated biomechanical structures in the spine, with complex anatomy, mechanical performance and effects on overall spine behavior and health.

- At each spinal level, there is a pair of facet joints located on the postero-lateral aspects of each motion segment, spanning from the cervical to the lumbar spine

- The facet joints, together with the intervertebral discs and spinal ligaments, connect the adjacent vertebrae of the spine at all regions and provide support for the transfer and constraint of loads applied to the spinal column. These articulations insure the mechanical stability and also overall mobility of the spine, while protecting the spinal cord running through it.

- Joint dysfunction literally means “bad motion.” There are two types of joint dysfunction: too little motion termed a hypomobility; and too much motion termed a hypermobility.

- If motion is altered at any one joint level, compensations usually occur at adjacent segmental levels to restore proper motion of the spine. For this reason a hypomobility at one level usually results in a compensatory hypermobility at an adjacent level, and vice versa. These compensations can then leapfrog up (or down) the spine, creating entire regions of dysfunction.

- The primary causes of spinal joint hypomobility can be divided into three types: taut soft tissue, bony obstruction, and jammed meniscoid body.

- Taut soft tissues and bony obstruction can be factors in all joint dysfunction hypomobilities of the body. However, in the case of spinal joints, a third cause of hypomobility has been proposed; that is a meniscoid body that has become pinched and jammed between the surfaces of the facet joint. A meniscoid body is a fibrous, fatty soft tissue that is located at the periphery of a joint space. If it displaces and moves toward the center of the joint, it can become pinched and swollen, obstructing motion toward that side of the joint.

- The synovial folds, or meniscoids or menisci, are intra-articular structures that protect the articular cartilage when opposing articulating surface glide on each other during joint motion

- This protection is realized since the meniscoids compensate for the incongruence of the joint's articular surfaces, guiding and smoothing their relative motion, and distributing the load over a greater surface area

 

In addition to these primary causes of joint hypomobility, a common secondary cause of hypomobile spinal joints is overuse due to compensatory hypermobility. When one segmental joint level is hypomobile, the adjacent joint will often become hypermobile to compensate so that the region still has full gross range of motion. In time, excessive motion at the compensatory hypermobile joint level can lead to overuse and irritation to that joint (in the parlance of Leon Chaitow: “used, overused, misused, abused”), thereby triggering muscle tightness to splint and stop its motion. Now there are two segmental hypomobile joints, causing the next adjacent joint level to become even more hypermobile to compensate. In time, this second hypermobility can also become overused and irritated, triggering muscle tightness and causing it to become hypomobile. In this manner, hypomobilities often spread through the spine. Because the musculature that tightens is often small intrinsic musculature, this condition is usually not symptomatic until the region of hypomobility is so great that full compensation by adjacent joints is not possible and gross range of motion decreases.

The longer a hypomobile joint or hypomobile region is allowed to exist, the worse it becomes. Lack of motion allows for the continued deposition of fascial adhesions that increasingly lock up the area. Allowing a hypomobility to continue also allows the increased muscle tone of the region to become more patterned into the nervous system. For these reasons, joint hypomobility tends to be a progressive condition that expands in both intensity and in scope throughout the spine. Indeed, it is not uncommon for middle aged and elderly clients to have large regions of their spine locked in hypomobility. The overall result is that once begun, this pattern of hypomobility progressively worsens as we age.

Once a joint has lost its normal range of motion, the muscles around that joint may tighten to minimize the stress at the involved segment or become overactive to prevent movement and further injury. This process initiates the cumulative injury cycle which subsequently alters normal movement patterns and leads to structural and functional inefficiency.    

The doctors at Life in Motion Chiropractic & Wellness have been specifically trained to assess and treat joint dysfunction, myofascial adhesions, as well as a variety of other musculoskeletal disorders.

The goal of treatment at Life in Motion Chiropractic and Wellness is to restore balance, flexibility, and control which instills self-efficacy and helps to keep your body moving naturally, feeling good, and aging well.

To learn more visit us at LifeInMotionChiro.com

1: Davis's law is used in anatomy and physiology to describe how soft tissue models along imposed demands. It is the corollary to Wolff's law, which applies to osseous tissue. It is a physiological principle stating that soft tissue heal according to the manner in which they are mechanically stressed.