So, you walk into your Physio clinic, often with a concern or an injury that you would like treated. For years we have been addressing these concerns and treating various injures through exercise as one of the methods; “here’s your sheet of three exercises, I will demonstrate them for you, we will practice them in the clinic, you’ll continue to practice them at home, and you’ll be as good as new”. While this can be effective, we have often noticed that patients go home, try the exercise, and revert to some bad structural habits in their practice.
Enter RedCord!
RedCord is a system that consists of cable and bungees suspended from the ceiling that supports your body weight. Sounds like a scene from Mission Impossible, but not quite. It does, however, make the impossible possible. It allows your therapist to evaluate your movement, find the weak link and to activate it appropriately to restore function.
What I love the most about the system is that you can assist or challenge specific patterns of movements depending on the patient’s needs. It is more than isolating one body part, it works on both movement and stability simultaneously. Exercises such as bridges and planks can now be better addressed to activate the correct “firing” pattern. This all being done while ensuring all movements are symmetrical and pain free.
After an injury, certain nervous system pathways are affected and do not activate due to chemical changes and pain avoidance mechanisms that our body subconsciously goes through. With RedCord, we can begin to work on these paths to stimulate the muscles by retraining the nervous system.
We often see athletes who are great at finding compensation patterns. However, when tested on the RedCord system, it is easy to identify the weak links. A primary example of this is when athletes use their back extensors in a squat rather than using their glutes, which can aggravate their injuries, create new ones and even limit their performance. With RedCord, we can recognize this pattern, avoid back extensor activation and have the glutes doing most of the work. This translates off the system to allow these people to do more successful squats and other movements.
It’s not only athletes that benefit from RedCord. We have seen results from patients pre- and post-hip surgery, young adults with minor back pain, ankle injuries, and even those who are just looking to strengthen to improve day-to-day posture and quality of life. RedCord is diverse in the sense where it caters to and enhances all types of abilities.
We are proud to say that Endeavour is the first clinic in Toronto to incorporate the RedCord Neurac Suspension Therapy. If you have been struggling with an injury, or if you are looking to bring your performance to the next level, it may be time to reach your full adaptive potential with RedCord suspension training at Endeavour.