Let’s talk about tissue healing, recovery from injury, and what that means to everyone, including movement enthusiasts.
Tissue healing simply means the bodies regeneration and repair by replacing destroyed or damaged tissue with new living tissue.
So what are these tissues of the body?
They include fascia, tendons, muscles, ligaments and bones and we cannot avoid using them and affecting them in daily living, let alone our information movement practices.
It’s a worthwhile reminder for us all in the health and wellness sphere (who are never really taught tissue tolerance or injury information) and for all of us to be able to understand more thoroughly and therefore take agency of our injury situation, that an injury is when load exceeds capacity.
There are 4 key phases of tissue healing and each one overlaps seamlessly, rather like the petals on a flower instead of separate starts and finishes like a pile of bricks .
These 4 phases are:
Bleeding
Inflammation
Proliferation
Remodelling
This is extremely relevant to us as it gives us an insight into what stage we might be in and encourage and emphasis on rest, sleep and breath work as part of vital healing. Oxygen is crucial to healing and this is an opportunity to reinforce these elements whilst reassuring people they are still supporting their bodies repair and all without stepping outside our remit.
Phase 1
Bleeding
This can vary from 4 to 8 hours as some tissues have lots of blood supply, great vascularity, such as muscles skin and organs so they bleed longer compared with ligaments and tendons, which have less vascularity. Sometimes we see blood, sometimes that bleeding might be a bruise, and sometimes there’s nothing we can see at all. The blood vessels constrict as a histamine release, allowing white blood cells to that area.. where the collagen is expose a plug is formed. Once the protein leaks in the blood vessels, thicken information leading to our second phase, inflammation.
Phase 2
Inflammation
It’s rapid and normal, sometimes it’s visible on the outside and sometimes it isn’t and sometimes it isn’t and it will resolve within 2 to 3 weeks. Inflammation, initiates healing, and allows the body to dispose of dead cells so that healing can take place.
Phase 3
proliferation
This stage begins around 24 to 48 hours after the injury and peaks at around 2 to 3 weeks. Remember we spoke about the vascularity of the tissues? Tendons and ligaments have very little blood flow, so there’s always take longer to heal so these always take longer to heal fibroblasts, begin theirwork. they are the cells laying down overlapping snail trials of collagen. At this stage of healing that collagen is type three the weaker one and actually injury can re-occurring this time zone.. think how many people come to class and think they’re fine, but they had an injury a couple of weeks ago, well they aren’t out of the woods and this is our opportunity to help them understand and keep an eye on them. Encourage them to back off and rest, especially class setting. Capillaries start to bloom in this phase and grow towards the repair zone, a little like fronds of coral and nutrients. They provide oxygen and nutrients, oxygen is vital for collagen production and this leads us to phase 4 remodelling.
Phase 4
Remodelling
Remodelling can be from three weeks to 18 months 18 months, especially if that damaged tissue is bone. this is the remodelling of a fibrous matrix to form scar tissue. Normal cell activity now resumes issue is organised. New tissue is organised and thicker stronger type. One collagen is in places in place. This gives us more tensile strength. We are remodelling so intelligent movement can be very valuable it’s. It’s worth noting that scar tissue is not elastic functional than the original tissue so is less strong and functional than the original tissue. Mindful movement can be very valuable. Cardiovascular fitness is vital to repair and recovery, but that doesn’t have to mean anything. Wild.
From a yoga perspective, cardiovascular yoga can be so much more intelligent than lots of transitions. We can work our heart in a simple damn dog and our hands. Don’t even have to touch the mat. But to get out of the gyms, studios and into the fresh air. Dynamically walk or run to raise the heart rate and encourage more oxygen intake. Interestingly, in this remodelling phase, passive stretching could work well. Physical stress is an important component in the development of quality repair tissue.
That is just one way we can apply stress but so are weights, resistance bands, swimming throughout phase 4
There in these four stages in mind, we would ideally be cross training for balance
The real takeaway is how we can use this information to create great plans and inspire. Does this information give us more food for thought regarding physical adjustments and more importantly create the confidence we can give people?
From injury, four phases of tissue healing, a multitude of cellular responses we aren’t even aware of and one and one incredible inspiring, regenerating body.
