While impact injuries are the most obvious source of injury and physical pain in the body, those circumstances alone may not provide deeper insight into why full mobility does not return or flare-ups occur months or years after the injury is healed.

The latest advancement in the treatment of physical limitations and its effect on pain due to bodily injury, as well as any symptoms that continue to persist, is Muscle Activation Techniques (MAT). In the past, conventional therapy concentrated on relieving the symptoms rather than looking at why an individual can perform a task without injury. MAT’s answer to the question is that certain muscles may be unable to properly contract.

With a different focus than conventional therapy, MAT treats the root cause of the symptoms by examining how decreased muscle contraction relates to an injury. When there is trauma, muscles can become weakened and lose their ability to contract, or tighten. When muscles are unable to handle the forces exerted upon them, those forces move to other parts of the body. This is why muscles that were not directly involved in an injury can often be responsible for causing pain symptoms. Sometimes the redirected force travels to joints or tendons, resulting in joint pain or tendonitis. If the problem persists, it is possible to wear away cartilage or develop a bone spur.

From a MAT perspective, tight muscles may not be inappropriately tight because there is something wrong with them, but because certain other muscles are not working. Activate lazy muscles and the tight ones let go. MAT can even address 50-year-old symptoms. Sedentary non-exercisers and professional athletes benefit equally from MAT training and improving muscle system function.

“Some of the things I’ve treated are back pain from a car accident, leg weakness and pain from disuse and a 30-year desk job, shoulder tightness and pain from professional tennis, back pain after surgeries didn’t fix it and back pain and stiffness in a client that had severe scoliosis,” says Jay Weitzner, MAT specialist and owner of Symmetry: No Fads All Fitness, in Naples.

“Additionally, I’ve rehabbed a knee post-surgery from an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and meniscus tear. One thing most of my clients say is, ‘I wish I knew about this years ago, and I certainly understand why MAT is so different from everything else,” says Weitzner.

He points out that he doesn’t treat pain. “Neither does anyone else. Pain anywhere in the body is a sensation that is the result of something that causes it. You cannot treat a sensation. My scope of practice is very precise. I seek to identify dysfunction in the muscle system and restore its function,” explains Weitzner.

Symmetry: No Fads All Fitness is located at 1750 J and C Blvd., Ste. 10, in Naples. For more information or to schedule a free evaluation, call 239-940-2121 or email visit [email protected].