OK – you go to your doc or therapist. He/she gets a funny orange
triangle thing (reflex hammer) and gently taps just below your
knee. Instantly, you kick out your leg. You get a look of
approval, and your doc moves onto to the next thing….. what just
happened here? And what does this have to do with running
surfaces I spoke of during my UROC video last week? Your doc is
testing your reflexes: an involuntary and nearly instantaneous
movement in response to a stimulus. By nature, a reflex is not
something you need to “think about” – it doesn’t require any
processing in your brain. Basically, your body gets a signal
(input), and it produces some type of response (output). So this
very simple action of a tiny tap below your knee cap produces a
contraction in your quad without your brain telling your quad to
contract. Pretty useless right? Wrong. Reflexes allow us to look
at your neuromuscular system. The term “Neuromuscular system” is
basically a fancy word to explain something very simple: muscles
can’t do anyth