3 Benefits of Seasonal Tune-ups for Your Kids
Winter sports have wrapped up their season — hockey, wrestling, gymnastics, swimming and basketball.
- Did your athlete get injured, minor or major, during the past season?
Spring sports will be starting soon — softball, baseball, badminton, lacrosse, tennis, volleyball, and track.
- Has your athlete grown? The seasonal transition can cause stress when layered on top of recent growth.
Between seasons is a great time to smooth out stress on their bodies from little injuries, wear and tear, and growing, putting them in great shape for spring activities!
Three reasons for a seasonal tune-up
Kids are wrapping up one season, taking a pause, and looking forward to the next season. Many switch to a new activity, which uses different muscles and movements. It’s the old-fashioned approach to cross-training.
Seasonal wear and tear
Wear and tear is one thing all active people have in common. These are some of the common sources:
- Over-use and over-training from repetitive movements
- Rough defense checks from other players
- Tired and tight muscles from poor sleep
- Tightness can be from growing
Often, we take the aches and pains for granted. We are taught from a young age that aches and pains are the price for being active.
This is so not true!
Stressed muscle and joint transitions are behind your aches and pains
At The Bridging® Institute, we find that on-going aches and pains are usually poor muscle or joint transitions, which cause stress. These often build-up from a collection of little incidents that happen on a daily basis.
Getting your seasonal re-set
We use the Bridging® micromovements and stretches to quickly and gently allow your child’s body’s little dings and dents to clear, and their core to re-center itself. This restores the smooth transitions between muscles at the joints as they move.
Often in 1-2 sessions your child will feel refreshed, relaxed, and good as new!
3 Ways to benefit from a seasonal tune-up
Each activity has unique needs and stresses upon a body. Your child may have aches, pains or stiffness, especially when switching into a new season.
These are three ways your child will benefit from a seasonal tune-up:
- Erase a seasonal collection of micro-traumas
- Re-set muscle transitions in changing bodies
- Refresh new skills for the next season
Erase the micro-traumas from bumps, falls and sprains
With each movement the feet strike the ground and put force into the body. This happens both during sports and during normal daily activity. These micro-traumas add up. And so often we don’t realize that something as small as a twisted landing creates more than a micro-trauma.
Enough of the little rough and tumble, or clumsy incidents, can result in larger compensations. These compensations cause stress on muscles and tendons as your child moves. Stress causes inflammation and inflammation causes pain. (And a child in pain creates a frustrated and worried parent!)
The Bridging® process checks a collection of joint transitions and core interactions to make sure they link together and flow smoothly. When they don’t transition well, we support and gently guide the muscles into an easier way of working.
Reset muscle interactions in changing bodies
Changing bodies are an on-going thing for 18 years, as children are always growing! The body can adapt to a lot, but it has a hard time adapting to rapid or extreme change (teen growth!!)
Growing bodies set the stage for muscle and joint stress – from merely everyday living, before including sports! When your child grows, the bones grow first. Muscles and tendons grow second which can cause coordination issues and actual joint stress. Not only are they tight, but they can change the angles which the joints interconnect, which puts the tendons in jeopardy.
The Bridging® process refreshes the muscle transitions and guides the body into its new way of working. With kids, Bridging® can relax tight muscles so they are less vulnerable, and more stable.
Refresh skills for the next season
Whether your next season involves a change of sports, or a new sport, each activity has different demands of your child’s body. Basketball requires vertical movement to jump, whereas softball requires rotation to bat. Running track and running in lacrosse involve different demands of agility and speed.
The muscles of the body are intricately connected, so impact or torque to one area really has an effect on overall function. These movement flows are our unique expertise! For each sport the Bridging® process is able to take specific skills into consideration and quickly refresh the transitions involved.
Wondering if Bridging® can help you or your child feel and function better as we head into a new sports season?
- Fill out our intake form and we’ll get back to you with insights on how Bridging® can help.
- Virtual or in-office sessions are two options we offer to get everyone back to feeling and performing their best.