Wednesday, December 12, 2012

What is Synergistic Dominance

A runner came into the office the other day dealing with calf pain.  Gastroc/soleus had started to tighten up on a few runs and was wondering what was going on.  On muscle testing, the tibialis anterior  was found to be weak.  It wasn't tight so adhesions and overworking were not highest on my list of possibilities.  Checking further up the Superficial Front line, the sartorious and rectus femoris were both pretty tight.  After doing some manual therapy on the Sartorious, retesting the tib muscle found it to be fully strong.

Synergistic Dominance is a trait where one muscle becomes so dominate it can inhibit a muscle that helps with the same movement.  In the above case, it doesn't just have to be a helper muscle as in biceps and brachialis, it can be in the same fascial line.

A muscle injury doesn't just have to happen in the fascial line, an antagonist (or opposite) can also be paying a price.  In the above example, the gastroc was strained, because its antagonist (tib ant) was inhibited.  Now you know what synergistic dominance is.  Work to keep those fascial lines strong.

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