Brian’s Movement Screen – multiple pain sites and difficulties
27th March 2021
“The Rehab Hub Movement Screen is one of our specialist sessions. It has been developed to help individuals and athletes who suffer with reoccurring injuries, multiple pain types, and those interested in returning to activity following an injury or significant time off. In this case study we look at a triathlete’s journey back to sport, demonstrating just how effective the movement screen can be.”
Brian is an avid triathlete and trains under the guidance of a coach and follows careful programming. He has seen significant improvements over the past 2 years but has also been suffering on and off with various injuries and pains which have prevented him from reaching his full potential.
Presentation
- Hip pain (whilst running and cycling, and after running, cycling, and swimming) – constant ache during and after exercise
- Back pain – uncomfortable but manageable.
Initial session
Brian first came to see Luke, one of our Sports Therapists for a Movement Screen. In this session they discussed the potential cause of the problems, the type of pain he was suffering with, his training plan in detail, how this was affecting him personally and what he wanted to achieve overall. He was guided through 7 functional movement tests to produce an overall score which helps to identify weaknesses, imbalances and deficiencies in movement patterns that could be the source of the difficulties. From there Luke carried out additional muscular and specialist tests that would provide an even clearer picture of what the issues were.
There were several issues including; a lack of muscular recruitment during particular movements, imbalances causing overload in other muscle groups, and restrictions that when combined resulted in Brian’s pain.
Rehabilitation
A rehabilitation pathway was laid out and discussed with Brian. He would attend clinic for Sports Therapy treatment in the initial stages to help normalise tissue and rectify restrictions identified in the screening. He was also given a specific and tailored rehabilitation plan to help promote muscular activation and rectify altered movement patterns.
Thetreatment sessions comprised of soft tissue techniques such as sports massage and specific release work to individual muscles/muscle groups, advanced facilitated stretching to help increase flexibility, joint mobilisations to help free restricted structures, and medical acupuncture to pinpoint specific areas of pain and tightness.
Brian had also been given a detailed mobility and strength plan to complete daily, this was to replace his training (that pain was preventing) and to help progress his recovery. It was updated and progressed over the subsequent sessions.
Progress and results
After the initial Movement Screen and four rehab/treatment sessions Brian is back cycling and swimming completely pain-free both during and after exercise. In his most recent session he was able to run pain-free on the treadmill. From here we can safely guide a return to road running – taking each week at a time to ensure we are not overloading structures. This progress is superb and a testament to Brian’s commitment to rehabilitation.
In that session we carried out the Movement Screen again to determine if Brian’s scores had altered and would reflect the positive outcomes he was seeing in his training. We were happy to see a positive shift in scores as illustrated in the before and after comparison, below:
If a Movement Screen sounds like something that might help you, or if you are suffering with a pain or injury that is affecting your ability to compete, train or carry out daily tasks, then please Contact Us for a chat.
Luke Denham
Clinic Lead Practioner – Sports Therapist
