The Joint Pain Phantom: Movement Variability

Movement variability refers to the natural variation in the way we move. Every movement that you make will be different, even in tasks that qualitatively look the same. The classic example of this was presented Nikolai Bernstein, a Russian neurophysiologist, who observed the stroke of a blacksmith’s hammer. Even within the same repetitive pattern, although the joint movements were the same, each stroke was different either in magnitude, degree, and timing. This is due to the nature of how our body works within its environment, constantly adjusting to its current position, momentum, and making micro-adjustments to maintain control. This concept of no hammer strike being exactly the same out of 10,000 strikes is the definition of movement variability.

This series of articles will help you understand movement variability in the context of your joint pain, why it’s important, and how to improve it.

Why is it important when thinking about our joint pain?

Variation is a critical component of our body and movement system. It allows us to learn new patterns and skills through practice, and enhances the robustness of our coordination. A major part of keeping our body (and mind!) in-shape, is maintaining and expanding a broad range of movements throughout our life. At AlloVitae we look at this through the lens of the functional trinity of strength, mobility, and coordination. These three prime factors govern all of our movement skills, no matter how simple or complex. In its simplest form, it’s about incorporating variety in how we move our joints, muscles, and body, which is essential for both prevention and rehabilitation of joint pain.

As pain and/or joint stress increase, our body begins to coordinate differently to alter our movements. Ironically, this leads to a reduction in our movement variability. Think of it as your body attempting to constrain the system to prevent pain or damage. It (“it” being our nervous system) will decrease the degrees of freedom (mobility) of a joint, or alter the muscle firing patterns (coordination), or even decrease the force production in that movement (strength). This “tightening” of our neuromuscular control can lead to even more problems, as the decrease in our movement variability will then spawn increased joint stress, tightness, and repetitive wear and tear.

For instance, in the case of chronic knee pain, the body will naturally begin to alter it’s gait, shortening the step length, altering the mechanics of the foot or ankle, and even changing the coordination of the supporting musculature around the hip, knee, and ankle. Consistently performing the same activity (like running or walking) through the pain, without changing up your movements, will reduce your body’s bandwidth, which might manifest in the following ways contributing to the pain:

• Tighten the tissues around the knee and/or hip to protect the sore joint, which in turn feeds into the problem

• Alter the gait and coordinative process even during basic activities like walking, squatting, or climbing stairs.

• Prevent excursions through different/extended ranges, creating chronic tension in other areas like the and muscles muscles and altering gait.

  
  

Incorporating different types of movement from the AlloVitae functional trinity of strength, mobility, and coordination can help improve and reset the bandwidth, ensuring that the entire system works in harmony. This keeps joints well-lubricated, enhances the range of motion, and prevents compensations that themselves lead to pain.

In general, here are some simple ways to maintain your body’s adaptability:

• Hip rotations and leg swings can help maintain hip mobility and prevent knee pain by maintaining range of motion in key areas.

• Shoulder circles and thoracic twists can improve upper body mobility, reducing the chances of neck and shoulder pain or stiffening due to sitting or altered gait mechanics.

• Squats, lunges, and hip hinging can build/maintain strength through range and move nutrients through the joints and muscles (in general, strength training is the king of improving joint pain issues), in slow and controlled movements.

• Multiplanar Walking (forward, backward, sideways, curved) can loosen tight muscles and improve balance, while challenging coordination. Generally performing activities in a different plain than the one your pain is in is a good way to expose the body to new ranges.

• Giving yourself ‘constraints’ can improve coordination and help your brain work through fixed patterns. A constraint is anything that makes your body do something in a certain way - for example, force yourself to step over something rather than going around it; or see if you can put something on a high shelf while holding another object in the opposite hand.

Repetition without Repetition - A Paradox

The more we move in a certain way, the better our body gets at performing that specific pattern and the variability of this pattern narrows, making the movement more efficient, for better or for worse.

From an evolutionary perspective, this is a positive adaptive response as it relates to our coordinative ability to improve our mastery of a movement skill, thereby using less energy on it  and leaving more energy available to do other things (such as, say, forage for food or identify toxic plants or dodge that snake coiled under a rock!). However, if we don’t maintain a broad range of different movements, or we do too much of the same thing repeatedly, and/or fail to address movement competencies that might be present within the task itself, the downside of a lack of variability will often rear its head as pain, soreness, dysfunction, or injury over time.

The Solution is in the details

But what does this all mean, big picture, for our joint pain?

By enhancing and maintaining our movement variability, not only can we offset the repetitive stress of certain necessary activities to modern life (walking, sweeping, shoveling snow, cleaning, sitting at a computer screen writing blogs, etc.), we can also improve the results of our pain management and fitness goals.

So, how can we ensure that we avoid the trap of a lack of variability, and maintain the balance of mastering our movement to get better at things, without narrowing our bandwidth? Below you will find the AlloVitae cheat sheet for maintaining movement variability in your day to day routines. In a later post we’ll explore how you can enhance movement variability in your life by thinking differently about basic activities and strength training. These strategies are key to helping fix and prevent chronic joint pain, and can be incorporated into your daily life with a little awareness.

AlloVitae Cheat Sheet to Movement Variability:

• Challenge your Coordination - add complexity to everyday tasks by altering the positions and patterns within them.

• Improve and Maintain your Mobility “Bandwidth” - reaching, swinging, and extending your limbs will gently nudge them to explore new ranges that are self limiting.

• Teach the Body different Strength “Skills” - move slow, move fast, move with rhythm, or don’t move at all - there are many different ways to build strength - try them all.

Conclusion

Movement variability is one of the most effective strategies for preventing and alleviating chronic joint pain, because it targets not just the tissue, but the brain. By incorporating a variety of movements into our daily lives, we can reduce the risk of overuse injuries, improve flexibility and mobility, strengthen muscles for better support, restore balance and coordination, and promote long-term joint health. But it doesn’t just have to be different movements, when we vary the way we move, we activate the neuromuscular system in different ways, and teach it new skills to better tolerate the loads of daily life and activities that might sneak up on us, too. 

Whether rehabilitating from an injury or simply looking to maintain joint health as we age, embracing movement variability is an essential component of pain-free living. So, the next time you’re moving your body, remember to switch things up. Your joints will thank you for it.