INFAD (Nov 2017)
The effectiveness of mézières therapy in the athletes with low back pain: the case study of national rhythmic gymnastics team of Murcia
Abstract
Introduction: The Mézières is a postural therapy which consists in improving anatomical postures and mitigation until disappearances of muscular contractures while reducing back pain through the most important muscle recovery by positively contributing in the individuals balance. The combination of this therapy with rhythmic gymnastics results very interesting by demonstrating the balance of posture and training, the modification of exercise type and tries to contribute in the achievement rates for competitions. Methodology:The experimental study was conducted on 35 young athletes of National Rhythmic Gymnastics who train five days per week with a duration of three hours per each session from 50 athletes in total in Sports Palace during a two months period (from 15 November 2016 to 15 January 2017) in the city of Murcia. Precisely, the Mézières therapy was conducted in an experimental group of 20 athletes (from 15 to 30 years old) while other additional data were received from the control group consisted in 15 girls (from 8 to 14 years old) after signing the informed consent from the athletes and their families. The above mentioned therapy was conducted for 2 consecutive months with two weekly individual sessions for each athlete with duration of 30 minutes. The postural evaluation of athletes was done through a meter tape in order to measure the elasticity and muscles tone, the pain scale-VAS while the gymnastics evaluation plan was handled on three dimensions including the dance height and the movement’s amplitude. Results: From the realization of pre and post-tests regarding the performance of Mézières therapy it was observed in 15/20 athletes: a reduction of VAS (pain scale) with a minimum of 2 grades; an improvement in the height of the jump by 3 cm; a visible palpable contractures reduction; a postural improvement; a backpack angles improvement; an increase muscles elasticity in lower posterior limbs and the realization of a movement amplitude with 20 additional degrees. Discussion:The rhythmic gymnastics is a sport that is practiced on the examined athletes by at least 10 years considering that the smaller accession gymnastics age is 5 years old. While their training is very tough and rigorous as each year the achievement rates are revised by requiring the examination of different sportive recovery and adaptation methods. Conclusions: Consequently for all these reasons the implementation of Mézières therapy in National rhythmic gymnasts of Murcia results fruitful almost being that they emerged sixth in the national competition during last year which confirms that their level of professionalism is very high and a positive prospective can be handled through the exercise of the proposed therapy.
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