A MIRACULOUS RECOVERY

This time I bring you information about electrostimulation in a different way, and I will write to you directly as a trainer through the experience of a FAST Costa Rica client . He arrived months ago without goals or hopes and, after several training sessions, he has managed to drastically change his quality of life.

María Luisa arrived at the center at the request of a friend, specifically the franchisee of the center she attends. Initially, I was looking for nothing more than to feel good, to get in shape. But as the weeks went by, and after having told me about an injury that had been dragging on my shoulder for a long time, we changed the objective and began to readjust the area to be able to lead a “normal” life. When I say normal, I mean to be able to do things that some people go unnoticed, like operate the computer mouse.

Read the interview and then I’ll tell you how the process has been .

Carota: How long have you started the FAST method ?

María Luisa: The first thing to do is get a little fit and gain a little strength. Improve my overall muscle tone.

Carlota: Are you getting it?

María Luisa: Yes, yes, but that goal is no longer my goal.

Carlota: Why is it no longer your goal?

María Luisa: Because I have had a shoulder injury for many years and now my goal is to heal it.

Carlota: How long have you had that injury?

María Luisa: Many, ten years or more.

María Luisa: I injured my shoulder while climbing, and I never fully recovered it.

María Luisa: Yes, yes, I did rehabilitation, I got all the mobility, but it never stopped hurting.

Carlota: What was it that prevented or prevents you from that injury in your day-to-day life?

María Luisa: In my day-to-day life, it hurts when I work with the mouse on the computer, I can’t carry bags with a lot of weight and if I pass it, it becomes inflamed.

Carlota: Since your goal in FAST has changed and you are training to improve this injury, has anything improved in your day-to-day life?

María Luisa: It has improved a lot. My coach is an excellent professional [laughs].

w hat can you do now, in these months, that you couldn’t before? Above all, working without pain. Working with the mouse for many hours without pain. I could do it for the first hour, but then it burdened me and I was in pain all the time. Now I forget. When you worked with the mouse and it hurt, what did you have to do?: Well, nothing, as I had to continue working … but I changed it to the left.

 Wow, a right hand with the mouse on the left [laughs]. I have acquired a lot of skill [laughs].Do you think that with more sessions this pain will be suppressed?Luisa: Yes, yes, of course. But come on, I don’t have things to fix [laughs].

From the experience as a coach, the challenge of readapting a shoulder that at the time did not overlap its rehabilitation with a good readaptation, is very complex, in fact, I did not know to what extent it could change the quality of life of María Luisa. After ten years we are talking about a long time with pain. Pain, in addition to incapacitating, over time is the cause of an unconscious disuse of the musculature, and therefore the activation capacity is lost. That is, the neuromuscular response ends up failing. For this reason, we first had to look for, in addition to mobility at all angles, activation of the area.

The main thing is to know the basic movements with which we have been training, which are those of the shoulder joint. Also as a coach I have to know that each movement corresponds to a different activity of the musculature, as well as the order in which some muscles or others come into play in a certain exercise. Anatomy, Biomechanics and a lot of feedback. This is what training with María Luisa is all about.

Without electrostimulation, the process would have been painful. Yes, as you read it. In some movements, such as adduction in the transverse plane, where it required a clear activation of the pectoralis, pain was produced. However, electrostimulation makes it possible to assist movement, in this case globally by using EMS Integral Activa.

But all of this takes a process, and it doesn’t happen overnight. We start with continuous stimuli, at low frequencies (Reduce program), to capillarize the area and increase blood flow.

Weeks later we already introduced medium frequencies, with stimulus and rest intervals. This allows you to increase the tone and begin to achieve activation voluntarily, providing feedback thanks to the electrostimulation, without producing an involuntary contraction. And in this program we are currently continuing.

The training program that I schedule for María Luisa is based on joint mobility, strength exercises on the movements of the shoulder joint, mobility exercises that accompany the maximum range as active stretching, and passive stretching. Also, emphasis has been placed on the “CORE”, that is, on the abdominal girdle, since the strength of the extremities depends on the stability of this area.

In all the warm-up sessions, which include basic joint mobility exercises, electrostimulation is at low frequencies. And in the return to calm, longer in this case than usual, passive stretching is accompanied by the special FAST stimulus to favor them.

There are many objectives that can be addressed with electrostimulation by putting it to good use. Now that you have read about María Luisa’s rehabilitation process, it is up to you to make the decision to want to improve your quality of life.