Why We Need A Body MOT To Stay Healthy And Pain-Free As We Age

Why We Need A Body MOT To Stay Healthy And Pain-Free As We Age. Hello everyone, I hope you are well. In today’s post, I will be sharing a guest post from Christophe Champs, a Biomechanic expert and founder of PODO Clinic and Workshop. Christophe will share why we all need to consider a Body MOT to stay healthy and pain-free as we age. By law, in the UK, you must get an MOT for your vehicle, but nobody forces you to have an MOT for your body. Although you must rely on it throughout your life, you cannot replace it, and your independence and freedom depend on its overall condition.

Why We Need A Body MOT To Stay Healthy And Pain-Free As We Age

In the UK, you must get an MOT for your vehicle by the third anniversary of its registration, but nobody forces you to have an MOT for your body. Although you must rely on it throughout your life, you cannot replace it, and your independence and freedom depend on its overall condition.

At any stage of life, men and women—whether athletes, workers or pensioners—can benefit from a body MOT (having it assessed by an expert) to improve their quality of life. Unfortunately, there is a prevalent idea when the body hurts or feels low. The solution can be found in a pill. This isn’t the case, and drugs don’t address underlying causes.

Let’s face it, ageing is not fun, but keeping active is key to keeping on having fun at any age.

But there is a risk. Physical activity can help you build a solid and healthy body, or it can cause damage. This depends on the quality of your alignment, balance, and posture (standing, sitting, and sleeping). So, it is essential to ensure that the body is aligned and in balance – that’s the MOT if you like.

So, what do you need to consider to ensure your body can work well and avoid injury?

Start Where You Are, With What You Have: Your Body

The body adapts to internal (physical, biological, psychological) and external (environment, social/contextual) factors, and the body has some essential functions.

• The body stores memories experienced in the past or information seen on others.
• The body assimilates and treats all types of data to fail better until it succeeds.
• The body controls automatism (our unconscious movements, like breathing).

It is important to remember that our bodies are not fixed they change over time.  These changes influence our body’s health and movements.

Who To Contact For A Body MOT?

An excellent place to start is with an expert in biomechanics, as they can look overall at your structure, posture, and movement. From there, they can recommend what treatment plan you will need and/or what other type of expert may be best for your circumstances. For example, you may need orthotics, an exercise plan with a trainer, regular physiotherapy or IDD (Intervertebral Differential Dynamics) Therapy. Or perhaps Pilates or yoga might be best for your cranial osteopathy. There are many options for getting your body assessed. You can then focus your treatment on the correct professional.

What To Expect From A Body MOT?

A body MOT should focus on your primary concern(s) with an expert to understand your physiopathology. Or how you went from a healthy state to a pathologic one. Once a problem is understood, it is on its way to being sorted. You will also benefit from having a professional identify any bad habits, and they can also dispel any myths you may have been told. Finally, you must have established a proper treatment plan. With progress points to track and a person to talk to when you have questions or feel demotivated.

Why Have A Body MOT?

Rather than opting for self-medication when experiencing any symptom. A body MOT will help you adopt a clinical and logical approach guided by a medical practitioner with better expertise and experience than the world-wide-web.

Every clinic has its philosophy and therapeutic arsenal. At PODO, for example, we work from—and on—the feet (the body anchor and a quarter of the skeleton) up to the neck. Look at the entire body while referring to other necessary techniques and therapies. Communication with patients and referrers is ongoing to ensure the patient understands how their body can work better and can take steps to get there.

Who Can Benefit From A Body MOT?

Everyone can benefit from a body MOT because preventive measures, compared to curative ones, make patients save time, pain, and money. Plus, by investing in your health to make your body work better, you will likely also improve your quality of life and treat yourself to a brighter future.

Many people already opt for at-home or in-clinic blood tests, a preventive health screening, to gain actionable insights into their current health status. It is unnecessary to have any symptoms or to be a hypochondriac to start taking control of your health. Blood and mechanical tests are equally important if you want to live better and hopefully longer.

What Kind Of Solutions/ Treatments Come Out Of A Body MOT?

Surgery-free—also known as ‘conservative’—solutions/treatments (for example, orthotics, manual therapies, physical therapies, coaching) are the most common approach. It is unlikely that any radical treatment involving blades and needles will be recommended at this stage.

For example, at PODO, we work on orthotics because they can independently address both sides of your body. Also, they can be adjusted or replaced over and over as your body changes, something that you can’t do with the joints inside your body.

Orthotics can be used for anything from a short time to permanently (depending on the patients and their goals). Bad habits must be changed and not allowed to reappear if you want to age more healthily and keep active and pain-free for longer.

Alignment, balance, and posture are the three axes your biomechanics consultant can improve for you with a pair of custom orthotics. Osteopaths and Chiropractors also work on the axis of your body, the skeleton if you prefer, through manual therapies. Once the bones are realigned, the muscle imbalances are reduced and can be addressed with your physiotherapist and trainer using various manual, physical, or alternative therapies.

Where Are The Limits Of A Body MOT?

This depends on the initial expectation and whether you need to focus on structural or postural factors.

Your structural factors can’t be changed. You’ve got to work around them. The ligaments connect the skeleton and its 224 bones. The elasticity of your ligaments will define whether you are stiff, mobile, hypermobile, or somewhere in between.

Postural factors are the ones that can be changed. From an untracking kneecap or foot overpronation to anterior pelvic tilt, obesity, or poor flexibility. Your practitioner will ask you to change your lifestyle and general diet. These will help to solve the issues and ensure long-term health.

In Conclusion

Treating the root cause is the opposite of treating the symptoms. Treating symptoms is just that – treating the symptom, it won’t make the issue go away. To do that, you need to look at the cause.

Some changes are easy to implement, such as putting a pair of orthotics in your shoes and lacing up your footwear every morning. Other changes will require you to take action and be consistent: change your diet, adapt your lifestyle, and do your daily stretches or strengthening exercises. But to make progress, it is always advisable to team up with an expert and get help creating the changes you have committed to improving your life. There is always a good reason to make your body work better.

At PODO, it takes only 90 minutes to draw up a treatment plan and make a pair of custom orthotics. But the communication is ongoing because orthotics is only one part of the puzzle to solve your problem, boost your rehab, improve your performance, and live better.

I hope you enjoyed that.

Talk soon

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Christophe Champs is a Biomechanic expert and the founder of the  PODO Clinic and Workshop. Christophe works with clients to help correct postural and biomechanical issues that are causing pain or putting a client at risk of injury. By testing both the moving gait and the still posture, Christophe can correct misalignment and asymmetry by creating custom-made orthotics to suit the exact needs of each client.

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