The Notion of Impingement

I remember thinking years ago how odd it seemed that people’s joint pain (often occurring for no known reason) would be addressed by simultaneously stretching muscles, moving joints, strengthening other muscles, and changing posture (plus ice, heat, US, etc). It didn’t seem logical that all of those pieces fell perfectly into disarray, leading to pain.

Does it make more sense that joint immobility and muscle tightness and weakness led to the impingement, or that the impingement led to those findings? What I find more rational is that a joint impingement, a joint derangement, or, simply put, a joint that’s a bit stuck occurs because, well, joints are mobile things and these things happen. The most obvious example is you unknowingly sleep in a certain position and you wake up with stuck neck joints. Or your shoulder joint gets impinged because you repeatedly move in a new way starting tennis again. Or your low back gets deranged because you sit in the exact same position in your office chair for hours a day. These factors and others can easily lead to minor (fixable!) joint disruptions. In fact, most of these examples, especially the neck scenario, will resolve with daily movement (and possibly a little rest) on their own - no doctors or other help needed.

I deduce in the clinic if a joint is impinged/not moving optimally by repeatedly moving joints and gauging the effect. I don’t rely on “impingement tests.” I secondly don’t believe in the value of imaging except for a small minority of cases. It’s much more likely that the bony configuration of your joint (eg shoulder acromion or hip acetabulum) has been that way, if not your entire life, then most of your life, and therefore this new pain is due to new factors.

To address it, in contrast to the stretching, strengthening, and movement I alluded to above, we look for the specific joint movement that unpinches the joint. It’s typically one that is not regularly performed in the person’s daily life. The theory as to why these things occur is that it’s normal for joints to get a bit stuck if you don’t move them in a variety of directions or if you spend the majority of your time in one uninterrupted direction. They’re so common that most self resolve, but I see the stubborn ones. -- Laura