What Is Poor Condition?

If a joint or muscle is injured it can become sensitive and apprehensive. Reflexes and the brain can actively reduce local movement, and recruit other joints and muscles nearby, to protect the injured area. This scenario is ideal in the short term while the tissues are mending. It can also be an effective way avoiding pain by shifting movement and load to joints and tissues nearby.

Ideally, normal, confident, well distributed motion is restored as tissues mend in the weeks that follow injury.

BUT THIS DOESN’T ALWAYS HAPPEN!

The sub-conscious brain has an excellent memory for pain. Sometimes normal motion is not restored, even if the person ‘feels’ no pain. This lack of normal use can lead to muscle, ligament or disc weakness over time. The parts of the brain and nervous system that control and protect the joint can also loose fitness.

Weaker and less coordinated joints are more vulnerable to re-injury (and persisting or increasing apprehension). This model can explain why pain can recur later at the same site following seemingly trivial events like reaching or picking something up.