01442 800400 Monday - Friday 8:30 - 18:00 Saturday 9:00 - 13:00 42 Lower Kings Road, Berkhamsted Herts HP4 2AA
Over 30 years Simon King has developed a deep and unique understanding of the importance of muscle reflexes and muscle strength in the maintenance of a healthy and pain-free body. He uses innovative treatment strategies to help patients become stronger and healthier so they can exercise and live without fear of illness or injury.
Nerve messages that go TO the brain are called AFFERENT (towards), while those that come FROM the brain are called EFFERENT (away from).
Simon King is an expert in Afferent Input and using Afferent Input to treat and prevent musckuloskeletal injuries.
Over thirty years in practice, Simon has always strived to understand the true origins of disease and ill health. Fascinated by muscle testing and the connections between nerves and muscles, he set about learning all he could about Applied Kinesiology and eventually became a diplomate of the ICAK in 1996. He has gone on to teach hundreds of practitioners the principles of Proprioceptive Medicine and Afferent Input.
With Jane Eastoe, he started the Naturality Wellness Centre in 2005 and has returned to the clinic after 6 years in Australia.
Simon is available Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. His specialties include sports injuries, sports performance enhancement, chronic pain and disability.
Websites:
www.live-without-pain.com
www.proprioception.org.uk
http://afferentinput.org
Afferent Input is the diagnosis and treatment of abnormal muscle tone.
Muscle tone is fundamental to human function.
Muscles are highly complex organs that do far more than just move us.
Muscles are sensory organs. Special cells within muscles constantly send messages to the nervous system so that we instinctively know the amount of tension each muscle is under and how long it is. That is how we know where our body is without looking. Muscles are the origin of most of the messages running the nervous system.
Every muscle has resting muscle tone – it is contracting even when not active.
Resting muscle tone exists in everyone, whether or not they go to the gym. It cannot be altered by exercise, stretching or massage.
Muscle tone protects our body from injury and is the basis of all movement.
That’s why it’s vital to assess muscle tone and make sure it’s optimal, not too much, not too little.
Low muscle tone will predispose to injury as the protective reflexes fail. Joints are damaged and over the long-term form osteoarthritis. Muscle tone also affects the glands and organs – leading to tiredness, fatigue and susceptibility to infections.
High muscle tone can cause aching and cramping. While high muscle tone is good in the short-term, it is not sustainable in the long-term.
As we get older, we may ignore the natural laws that would protect us from messing up our muscle tone and we suffer the consequences.
An Afferent Input consultation starts with FULL ASSESSMENT of muscle tone, including neurological and orthopedic testing. If areas of low muscle tone (inhibition) or increased tone (tightness or spasm) are found, the practitioner changes sensory input until tone is normal and then uses whatever treatment is necessary to make those changes permanent.
Imagine jumping off a chair onto the ground.
At the moment of impact, certain muscles start to stretch, activating hugely increased firing of the sensors in those muscles. Messages are sent to the spinal cord and immediately return to the muscle, increasing its tone, power and strength ensuring that you do NOT fall on the floor, sprain your ankle or dislocate your knee.
Imagine now you do that same jump but this time you land in bare feet on broken glass. A different reflex (the withdrawal reflex) would prevent your quadriceps from contracting because the withdrawal reflex produces INHIBITION of the quadriceps and FACILITATION of the hamstrings. The withdrawal reflex, which would normally prevent injury by stopping you from pushing your foot through a nail, now CAUSES injury by removing strength from the muscles you need.
It turns out many persistent illnesses and injuries are caused by muscle inhibition.
An Afferent Input practitioner tests the output of the muscles. Where that output is deficient or inhibited, the practitioner can provide a solution, one that restores normal muscle tone.
Depending on the patient, treatment may involve:
Simon is available at the Naturality Wellness Centre in Berkhamsted on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
Treatment is centred around muscle testing to formulate a diagnosis and a plan for treatment which may involve the removal of foreign bodies (especially metal), gentle manipulation, exercise, nutrition, or environmental change.
Special interest is in sports injuries, sports performance, chronic pain and disability.
