Improving Your Physical Capacity to Demand Ratio: Tips for Better Health Balance!

It is common for a person to come in to the clinic seeking help for a painful problem. During the evaluation and exam, the doctor often finds that the patient's physical capacity is not what it needs to be to meet the demands that they need for the activity they want to do. Their scale is often tipped low on the capacity side, leaving them vulnerable to overuse injury and inappropriate stress. Understanding and improving the balance between physical capacity and physical demand is crucial for maintaining good health and to keep doing all the activities in life that you want to do.

Have more physical capacity than demand

Physical Capacity: What Is It?

Physical capacity refers to your body's ability to perform various physical tasks and activities at a particular level without causing failure. It encompasses factors like strength, mobility, endurance, motor control, general fitness and overall health. Your physical capacity can be influenced by genetics, age, lifestyle choices like sleep, diet, and beliefs, and past injuries or medical conditions in both upward or downward directions. What we know is that no matter what, a person can improve their physical capacity using incremental rehab/training strategies and other treatment and lifestyle habits to help build and maintain capacity to meet their daily needs. We like to say, "we start where ever you are at."

Physical Demand: What Does It Entail?

Physical demand, on the other hand, represents the tasks and activities you encounter and need (or want) to perform in your daily life. Dr. Dobelbower often speaks to the physical demands of everyday requiring everyone to be an athlete of daily life since the physical demands of life include exercise routines, walking, lifting, general and specific work tasks, caring for young children, mopping the floor, playing fetch with the dogs, carrying a load of laundry, or getting up and down off the floor with ease, etc. These demands can be influenced by more that our fitness levels. For instance, if you have recently had an injury, your body's demand for repairing tissue will now require a higher amount of protein and other nutritional factors. If you planning on doing sport routinely, you will likely need to increase your sleep time to allow great recovery and heal time.

*Professional athletes on average need 9 hours of sleep to perform at their best!

The Relationship Between Physical Capacity and Demand

Maintaining good health relies on a balance between what your physical capacity actually is and the physical demand you face routinely. When your physical capacity surpasses your physical demand, you can perform tasks efficiently with minimal strain, stress, or risk of injury or illness. You have extra health coins to spend from your health account. However, when your demand overshoots your capacity, problems can arise that can be painfully unpleasant and functionally limiting. You health account will become overdrawn and you are likely to start bouncing your health checks.

*This balance of capacity and demand also applies to our mental, emotional, and physiological health.

Prioritizing a little time and effort to build strength, endurance, mobility, and overall health will help build and maintain a physical capacity bank account. It is important to train your capacity to exceed the amount of demand that is needed for your normal activities. Why? You might need to pay a little higher amount out of your health account when your normal demand changes. For example, if you train your capacity to exceed the usual 10lbs grocery bag say to 12lbs, then the day that you add that extra spaghetti squash to the bag, you still can handle it. Or for instance, if you only do 2 mile walks to train for your fitness and then go on a 3 mile hike, will you regret it the next day? So, if you want to be able to do the 3 mile hike, you should train 3.5-4 miles to pay a little extra into your capacity account. When capacity is higher than day to day demands = less risk of discomfort, pain, injury, and illness.

Also, plan on rest and recovery days. If you exceed your bodies ability to recover from training, physical effort, or stressful situations you are more likely to perform poorly, driving dysfunctional patterns that often lead to injury. If you need to perform at a high level, nutritional support to aid in recovery can help build your bodies capacity to train harder or adapt to additional stress.

When to Seek Help from a Doctor of Chiropractic who also specializes in Rehab, Functional Movement, and Lifestyle care?

1. If you Have Persistent Pain or Discomfort: If you experience persistent pain or discomfort during or after physical activities, it is a sign that your body may not be handling the demands you ask of it effectively. This could suggest there is an underlying health problem hampering your ability to meet these physical demands. Having a Doctor of Chiropractic evaluate and perform a through exam can identify the underlying issue and develop a suitable plan to address any other health issues and provide appropriate support to elevate your capacity with your overall health in mind.

2. If you Experience Frequent Injuries or Are Not Healing From Injury: Repeated injuries or longer than normal healing time, especially when engaging in low-moderate activities or exercise, are red flags that there is a dysfunctional movement pattern that exists or another physical problem that needs evaluation and treatment. These injuries could indicate a need for a closer evaluation of your physical capacity, biomechanics, or training technique. These could also be an indicator that your nutritional and/or repair strategies are not meeting your physical needs and need to be assessed and addressed.

3. Limited Range of Motion: Difficulty moving your joints through their full range of motion can impact your daily life. Seek help if you notice a decrease in flexibility, mobility, or overall strength, as it could be a sign of an underlying issue that requires further investigation into what care is required to improve joint mobility that will help you make the next steps to improving your capacity.

4. New or Intense Exercise Programs: When starting a new exercise program, it's advisable to consult a healthcare professional to make sure the program is within your physical capabilities and help make appropriate adjustments if needed. If you have an underlying health condition such as heart disease, diabetes, or arthritis, etc, this is especially important. It is essential to know how to gradually and specifically increase physical demand in a way that will not exacerbate the health condition to keep you safe and engaged. Not all health care professionals are qualified to provide this level of expert attention, so be sure to seek out someone with training in rehab and functional movement.

5. Persistent Fatigue or Change in Body Functions: Feeling excessively tired, even after sufficient rest, may be a sign that the physical demand on your body is exceeding your capacity in more ways than one. Other signs to watch for are lightheadedness, dizziness, cough, shortness of breath, or need to slow down otherwise normal activity. This could result from a variety of factors, including underlying health conditions, and should be discussed with a healthcare professional. Doctors of Chiropractic can help assess non-spinal problems, so be sure to bring up any of these symptoms with them. If you experience anything that seems emergent, please go to the emergency room.

The understanding of physical capacity and demand encompasses more than physical fitness. People often compartmentalize their health thinking that if they are fit their health is set. But health is multifaceted and driven by several health habits like sleep, diet, exercise, mental framing, connection and touch, and the proper functioning of your neurological and hormonal system. If you are experiencing difficulty in other areas of your health, your physical demands will exceed your capacity. Dr Dobelbower is also a clinic nutritionist and helps people improve their health using nutritional and herbal supports and lifestyle habit modification.

Understanding the balance between physical capacity and physical demand

This is an important key to maintaining good health and preventing injuries and illness over a lifetime. In the short term, pay attention to your body, understand limitations that you may have at this time and be patient with yourself. For the long term, gradual building of capacity to surpass your normal day to day demand is better than trying to do it all at once. By doing so, you can enjoy a more active, vibrant life that allows you to enjoy more possibilities!

Better Health, Better Function...More Possibilities!

Kathi, functional rehab

Kathi is engaged in helping people build physical capacity with rehab and functional movement training in part because of how much it has helped her stay active at the high level of demand that she enjoys to live life. She not only uses physical training, she uses nutritional and other lifestyle habits to keep out pacing her day to day demands.