Your body will respond to an instability or an injury by tightening muscles to protect you. This is an involuntary, autonomic response that I see every day in my practice; I call it muscle “splinting.”
The effect is similar to when the doctor puts a splint on an injured limb to protect it. The splint stabilizes and protects the area from further disturbance and pain.
A common site of muscle “splinting” is in the low back, alongside the vertebrae in the lumbar spine. Autonomic tightening of these muscles accompanies misalignments of the lumbar vertebrae, as well as soft tissue injuries or stresses such as accompany a strain-sprain.
When vertebral misalignments, whether from overuse, one-time biomechanical stress, or an injury, are corrected by precise adjustments with the Activator instrument, the muscles are then able to start to relax.
