A muscle imbalance occurs when there is an alteration in the latest tension relationship surrounding a given joint. Charles Sherington first describes the neurological concept of reciprocal innervation. Basically, when a muscle contracts for example the quads they receive a nerve impulse to contract. The antagonist which is the hamstrings receive a nerve impulse to …
When the brain senses bony instability or tissue damage in and around the spine, decisions are made that help determine the extent of threat to the individual and what actions need to be taken. One decision is layering the area with protective muscle guarding. By splinting the area with spasms, the hypercontracted muscle effectively reduces …
When we have structural facet dysfunction, we will usually see a loss of muscle control. The muscles need to return back to their resting state after being used. If they cannot they begin to compress their related structures. Remember afferent signals are your sensory neurons. So once the information gets up to the brain, or …
Every day we see the forward head posture and neck dysfunctions. Yes, there are many reasons that people get headaches. But one of the main culprits is the sub-occipitals. Exaggerated forward head posture creates increased cervical lordosis and to keep the eyes from looking down the client must hyperextend at the Occipital Atlanto joint or …
The splenius capitis and cervicis have an important role and a hard one at that when clients have the forward head posture. Like some of the erector muscles that run parallel with the spine these splenius muscles travel in an oblique direction or in a diagonal zone. Unilaterally they can sidebend and rotate the head …
When evaluating the upper cross strain patterns or nerve dysfunction traveling don the arm, be sure to take a look at pec minor. This is one of the most important muscles to treat when your client comes in with the upper cross strain patterns. Pectoralis minor is a major player when it comes to bad …
It is important to look at the thoracolumbar junction mainly the latissimus dorsi. Why? Well this muscle connects the shoulder girdle to the pelvis and is involved with lumbopelvic mechanics. Techniques that open up constricted chest wall soft tissues also reciprocally strengthen the lower shoulder stabilizers. Likewise, lengthening hypertonic lats and subscapularis muscles reciprocally strengthen …
Most of us can agree that one of the major complaints we see as manual therapists is shoulder dysfunction or pain between the shoulder blades. Sometimes this can be caused by trauma but mostly we are going to see kyphosis which is the rounded back caused by upper cross strain patterns where restrictions occur in …
Introduction Based on the foundational work of Erik Dalton’s Myoskeletal Alignment Techniques (MAT), Grey Cook’s Functional Movement Screen (FMS), and the Gait Guys. During movements that involve flexion, extension, and sidebending, the ligaments of the pelvis have very important roles stabilizing the hips and lumbar spine. One of these ligaments is the iliolumbar ligament. This …
Introduction Based on the foundational work of Erik Dalton’s Myoskeletal Alignment Techniques (MAT), Grey Cook’s Functional Movement Screen (FMS), and the Gait Guys. As manual therapists, we get recurring complaints of knee pain. Often, we hear the complaint is on the left side. Why? Is it a true knee issue, a hip issue, or an …
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