Joint Soreness?

[FearSonic]

I tend to run and land a lot, and I believe this is the cause of all the landing I do in kung fu, and all the parkour stuff I do around my town. Also, there seems to be a lot of tension and soreness in my shoulder area.

Note, I do go to a chiropractor every two weeks for a readjustment of my spine (It was angled to the right by about 5 degrees) and it takes away some of that soreness. Unfortunately, the knees and shoulders are not affected too much.

Are there anyways to either a) Take away the pain of it all or b) Build the muscles around said joints to make them stronger? Many thanks!

[Dackpt]

If your doing a lot of high impact activities, it could be worth while supplementing with Glucosamine and Omega-3 Fatty acid to help sustain healthy joints. You can get Glucosamine over the counter at a chemist or a health shop. Omega-3 is found in foods such as oily fish (mackerel) and walnuts. Cod liver oil is a good source and I recommend having it by the spoonful if you can stand the taste. The capsuals don’t hold a lot of oil and can be more expensive.

As for your shoulder, strengthening immediately will make the problem worse. Firstly you need to stretch the shoulder off to relieve some of the tension. This will more than likely take away the soreness and could help with the re-alignment of the spine. When the spine is out of line, the muscles around it shorten. This may be a result of the spine being out of line or cause the spine to be out of line in the first place. When the chiropractor readjusts your spine, the tight muscles may remain tight, pulling the spine back over-time. I would suggest seeing a sports massage therapist as well as a chiropractor to sort the muscle imbalance after the spine has been realigned. It could save money in the long run as you shouldn’t need to see the chiro as often (so the theory goes). In the mean time, ice the sore areas after sport for around 12 minutes to ease the pain and help with recovery.

The for mentioned stretches will appear on the PNF stretching article under medial & lateral rotators. Just keep an eye out and ill drop a message on here when it’s updated. For now, have a read of the stretching principles article and do stretches 8 and 9 of the PNF article. (the instructions are under 1 so read the first couple to get the idea)

DackPT

[FearSonic]

Thanks loads!