Ligaments, What do they do?
I personally really love ligaments, the way they wrap around, and attach to our bones is really beautiful.
Ligaments are much like elastic bands, what they do is hold our bones and joints together. Ligaments attach from one bone to another like cables on a suspension bridge. If one ligament isn’t sitting properly it can impact our posture creating pain in several parts of the body. When one part of the body is picking up slack for another it is often called “compensation”.
Symptoms such as bunions are a perfect example of compensation. If your foot is pronating and end up walking on your toe joint it is going to calcify in an effort to protect itself. Over time this becomes disfiguring to the foot. This compensation in particular is the result of misalignment in the pelvic girdle even thought you are experiencing the problem in your foot.
Another example of how root causes can be located somewhere other than the symptom is, if you have pain in your shoulder (or one is dropped lower than the other). These symptoms are often the result of the neck being out. There is a ligament that runs from between the C2 and C3 to the shoulder and when it is pulled, or pinched it can cause the shoulder to drop which in turn causes pain.
Our bones have perfect grooves for each ligament to lay in. If we overstretch, or twist, a joint ligaments can pop out of their grooves and cause pain. If you move your body and have a clicking sound in your joints it’s likely a wayward ligament rolling over bone or other ligaments.
Without ligaments you’d just be a pile of bones and even your muscles couldn’t save you. Ligaments are the structural engineering of your body, and making sure that this foundation is solid is crucial to your well being.