Don't worry Kev if you never heard of Freyette's law of coupled motions. Not everyone buys into it (Does the Evidence Support the Existence of Lumbar Spine Coupled Motion? A Critical Review of the Literature- JOSPT April '07). I just find it a convenient way of describing and documenting spinal dysfunction. So much for that.
Brian asked why I chose a right stride stance. Good question. In this case, if I started with the head in neutral, I would have used up most of my left cervical rotation. In osteopathic terminology, I would have already been into the interbarrier zone. Going through it would have been painful, and forced the motion to other cervical segments that had more motion.
Extension was the most painful motion for this athlete, so I chose to address the other two planes first. I do believe in Freyette's 3rd law-that if motion in one plane is restricted, it will influence the other two. So, I can improve extension ROM indirectly by going after frontal & transverse planes first (and it worked, by the way).
In summary, the point of the post was influencing the cervical spine indirectly by way of the T-Spine. It's completely safe, because unlike a manipulation, the athlete is doing the correction, is in complete control, and can stop it any time he wants.
3 comments:
I'm sure you could put the athlete in a half kneel position(especially if it's a basketball player) similar to the standing position and apply movement with mobilization or a muscle energy technique. Another words place the athlete in functional/WB'ing positions and out of the supine/passive position where most manual TX takes place. Even using some isometric holds through trunk rotation may work.... Thanks for the thought provoking post...!
Slightly off-topic. I'm fascinated by the your posts about ankle mobility. How does one progressively strengthen the ankle in all directions? Does it make any sense to run across a hill (along a contour line) to exercise a range of motion with eversion and inversion?
I'm an athlete that is interested in improving my movement skills. Your posts are very thought provoking, even when I don't understand all the jargon.
Thanks!
Brian,
I see you did a fellowship with the Gray Institue. Is this the same as the GIFT program? I was really interested, as I have been learning a lot via the functional video digest series. I bought two of the volumes and then learned about the GIFT program. Howver, the cost is way out of my price range. How did you afford this? You can e-mail me @ pfrost99@msn.com.
Thanks,
Patrick Frost, ATC, CSCS
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