Tag: nociception

September in Review

Every week, my newsletter subscribers get links to some of the goodies that I’ve come across on the internets. Here were the goodies that my peeps got their learn on from this past August. If you want to get a copy of my weekend learning goodies every Friday, fill out the form below.  That way you can brag to all your friends about the cool things you’ve learned over the weekend. [yikes-mailchimp form=”1″ submit=”Hell yes I want weekend learning goodies every Friday!”] Biggest Lesson of the Month Much of our successes and failures can be linked back to the habits we have. I noticed many times this past month that ineffective habits I had picked up were hampering my progress and productivity. One simple change (eliminating a to-do list, blocking out time to do things) was a complete game changer for me. If you are doing something you don’t like, how do your habits keep you falling into that trap? Quote of the Month “Quality is not an act. It is a habit.” ~ Aristotle Very much linked to the above lesson. We need quality to become automatic, and who better to illustrate this than an O.G. like Aristotle. Hike of the Month This was a tough decision to make on multiple fronts. This month I hiked four National Parks, saw a National Monument, and did all types of ill stuff. Though Sequoia National Park will forever hold a dear place in my heart, Yosemite was hands down one of

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Course Notes: Advanced Integration and PRC Reflections

I Passed I officially became a Jedi this past December after retaking Advanced Integration and going through the Postural Restoration Certified (PRC) testing. Both were a wonderful experience in terms of learning new concepts and fine-tuning old ones. Since I have retaken this course, I will not go into huge detail in terms of the material covered (if you want detail, read last year’s AI notes here, here, here, and here). Instead, I will reflect on a few concepts that really hit home for me (No, i’m not saying what we did at the PRC)! Enjoy.  Extension is Evolution Extension is what allowed our brains to develop because it brought us to two legs. The big extenders: psoas, paravertebrals, lat, QL, capitis Extension given us more but comes with a cost. As we continue to extend, we increase system demands. Extension will likely be a necessary adaptation to live in the world we are creating. I’m scared to see what the future looks like. Position Refers to triplanar position of the body. Neutrality is the state of rest and transition zone from one side to the other. We want this most of the day, but can’t expect this to occur all day. We want to establish a rhythm in and out of neutrality in alternating and reciprocal function. The alternating and reciprocal rhythm has alternate appendages on either side of the body. When the left leg is in front, the right leg should be back. In right stance, the appendages take

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The Post Wonderful Time of the Year: 2014 Edition

And That’s a Wrap It’s that time of the year that we get to look back and reflect and what posts killed it (and which bombed). It seems as though my fine fans be on a pain science kick this year, and rightfully so. It’s some of the best stuff on the PT market right now. It’s definitely a topic I hope to write about more in the coming year, and one I will be speaking on at this year’s PRC conference. But without further ado, here are the top 10 posts of 2014. 10. Treatment at the Hruska Clinic: PRI Dentistry and Vision Going through the treatment process as a patient has really upped my game in terms of knowing when to integrate with my patients. It has also been a life-changing experience for my health and well-being. Learn how they did it for me. 9. Course Notes: THE Jen Poulin’s Myokinematic Restoration So much fine tuning occured the second time around. I love how Jen acknowledged the primitive reflex origin of the patterns, as well as fine tuning both lift tests. She’s an excellent instructor (and fun to party with)! 8. Treatment at the Hruska Clinic: Initial Evaluation The start of my alternating and reciprocal saga. Made for one of the most fascinating evaluations I have ever experienced. Ron Hruska is otherworldly. 7. Course Notes: PRI Postural Respiration I love a good foundational course taught by the Ronimal. You always get a few easter eggs that allude to

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Course Notes: PRI Impingement and Instability – Cantrell Edition

A Quick Trip Home  I made my first trip back to my roots since moving out west to watch Mike Cantrell’s version of one of my favorite courses: Impingement and Instability. Yes, if you are wondering, my family does hate me for not being able to visit them. Mike absolutely killed all of the various topics we covered, and his ability to coach some of the advanced PRI activities is second to none. I had a blast learning from him. I won’t go over all the nitty gritty like I did here, but here were some of my favorite concepts that we covered. Learn on. The I&I Conundrum  Impingement occurs due to the human system’s conflicting demands. We face a battle between instability and stability. Flexion allows for movement variability, which is desirable in the human system. Variable movement reduces threat perception. However, system flexion leads to increased instability and the risk of falling forward. To combat this risk, impingement may occur by compensatory extension. Extension begets joint and system stability, yet system variability is minimized. Increased stability is desirable when under threat, but not for long term. The “goal” then, would be to build control within flexed instability so the system can stay variable; to remain upright without extension. As Charlie Weingroff would say, we want “control within the presence of change.” That is alternating and reciprocal movement. That doesn’t mean you have to do silly little PRI exercises for the rest of your life. PRI activities are simply neuromuscular training

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The End of Pain

I’m Done Treating Pain. Yes. You read that correctly. I’m over it. Several different thoughts have crept into to my mind sparked by what I have read and conversations I have had. I would like to share these insights with you. I remember when I was visiting Bill Hartman Dad a few months ago and we were talking about a specific treatment that is quite controversial in therapy today. He said something that really resonated with me: “Maybe they measured the wrong thing.” This sentiment was echoed in “Topical Issues in Pain 1” by Louis Gifford. Check out this fantastic excerpt: “Thus, pain can be viewed as a single perceptual component of the stress response whose prime adaptive purpose is to powerfully motivate the organism to alter behavior in order to aid recovery and survive.” Notice what I bolded there. Pain is a single component of the stress response. Not the stress response. Not a necessary component of the stress response. Just one possibility. Why do we place so much importance on pain? Many proponents of modern pain science (myself included) often use this statement against individuals who are over-biomedically inclined: “Nociception is neither necessary nor sufficient for a pain experience.” Agreed, pain is not always the occurring output when nociception is present. That said, pain is only one of several outputs that may occur when a tissue is injured. Just because pain is absent does not mean other outputs are also absent. Many different outputs can occur when an individual is

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PRI and Pain Science: Yes You Can Do It

Questions You may have noticed that my blogging frequency has been a little slower than the usual, and I would like to apologize for that. I am in the midst of creating my first course that I am presenting to my coworkers. It has been a very exciting yet time-consuming process. It makes me excited and more motivated to someday start teaching more on the reg. Ever since I started blogging people started asking me questions. These range from many topics regarding physical therapy, career advice, and the like. Some of the more frequent ones include: What courses should I look at? Any advice for a new grad? Seriously, Bane. What’s the deal? But the one I get asked more often then not is as follows: “Zac, how do you integrate PRI into a pain science model?” A great question indeed, especially to those who are relatively unfamiliar with PRI. With all the HG, GH, AF, FA, and FU’s, it’s easy to get lost in the anatomical explanations. Hell, the company even has the word (gasp) “posture” in the title. Surely they cannot think that posture and pain are correlated. I think there is a lot of misinformation regarding PRI’s methodology and framework. What needs to be understood is that PRI is a systematic, biopsychosocial approach that predominately (though not exclusively) deals with the autonomic nervous system. The ANS is very much linked into pain states, though not a causative factor. But of course, that may not be enough. Perhaps

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Course Notes: Explain Pain

A Whirlwind I finally had the opportunity to meet my personal Jesus, David Butler, and learn the way that he explains the pain experience to patients. It was an interesting weekend to say the least. The course started off with a smash…literally. We had the unfortunate experience of someone breaking into our car to start the trip off. Then once we arrived to the course, we were informed that Dave was going to be 2 hours late. He was staying in Philly (where I also experienced flight troubles last week) and a snowstorm with a name no one cares about stopped his flight. So Dave drives all the way from Philadelphia, “tilting his head back to rest” for 1 hour, and then what happens? He, along with the other instructors, drive to the wrong campus. So after all these crazy things happen, Dave finally makes it to the course, sets up his presentation, plays a little Bob Marley, and……………… Kills it. I mean, absolutely kills it. To see Dave present this topic under the above circumstances and be on the entire time is a testament to the type of speaker and professional he is. David Butler is one of, if not the best speaker I have ever heard. So I’d like to thank you, Dave, for making an otherwise stressful weekend memorable and exciting. I look forward to applying what I have learned. If you haven’t taken a course from the NOI Group, please do so yesterday! So what did

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The Year of the Nervous System: 2014 Preview

It’s All Part of the Plan And if you see my course schedule this year, the plan is indeed horrifying.   I wanted to write a post today to somewhat compose my thoughts and plans for this year, as well as what I am hoping to achieve from the below listed courses. Because of the course load and some of my goals for the year, I am not sure what my blogging frequency will look like. I have begun to pick up some extra work so I am able to attend as much con ed as I do. The Amazon affiliate links that I don’t get money for because I live in Illinois simply cannot pay for classes :). I am just putting these links up here because I want to encourage you to read these books on your own. Use my site as a guide through them. Big Goals My biggest goal for this year is to successfully become Postural Restoration Certified (PRC), and my course schedule below supports this goal. The amount that I use this material and the successes that have come along with it simply compel me to become a PRI Jedi. I see the PRC as a means to achieving this goal. The application thus far has been quite time-consuming. There are a total of 3 case studies, 5 journal article reviews, and tons of other writing that has to be done. Couple that with studying the material, and I have had a very busy

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Course Notes: Advanced Integration Day 4 – Curvature of the Spine

Today we get wild and crazy and talk about scoliosis and the like; the last day of AI. For day 1, click here For day 2, click here For day 3, click here Scoliosis Variations The entire day focused predominately on treating scoliosis, which oftentimes amounts to exaggerations of the common patterns PRI discusses. Because scoliosis is an exaggerated PRI pattern, one must beget the question if the pattern or scoliosis came first? This question obviously cannot be answered, but for our intents and purposes we ought to assume pattern precedes curve. That way we may be able to alter the impairment. The scoliosis we can alter is often functional aka rotational. These types are ones that everyone has; the question is to what degree. Nonpathological Curve The nonpatho curve is an exaggerated version of the LAIC/RBC pattern, oftentimes with superior T4 syndrome involved. In this pattern the left ribs are externally rotated and right internally rotated. This reason is why 98% of scoliosis has right sided rib humps. A rib hump is akin to excessive rib internal rotation.  In this case, the spine looks like so… Here we can see how the spine excessively right orients up to T8-T9, then rotates left superior to that. These patients will present with typical Left AIC and Right BC test results along with typical right lateralization. One difference may be the right shoulder is not as low as typical with most patterned individuals. This change is due to compensating for the excessive curve. When

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The Post Wonderful Time of the Year: Top Posts of 2013

The Best…Around Time is fun when you are having flies. It seems like just yesterday that I started up this blog, and I am excited and humbled by the response I have gotten. Hearing praise from my audience keeps me hungry to learn and educate more. I am always curious to see which pages you enjoyed, and which were not so enjoyable; as it helps me tailor my writing a little bit more. And I’d have to say, I have a bunch of readers who like the nervous system 🙂 I am not sure what the next year will bring in terms of content, as I think the first year anyone starts a blog it is more about the writing process and finding your voice. Regardless of what is written, I hope to spread information that I think will benefit those of you who read my stuff. The more I can help you, the better off all our patients and clients will be. So without further ado, let’s review which posts were the top dogs for this year (and some of my favorite pics of course). 10.  Lessons from a Student: The Interaction This was probably one of my favorite posts to write this year, as I think this area is sooooooo under-discussed. Expect to be hearing more on patient interaction from me in the future. 9) Clinical Neurodynamics Chapter 1: General Neurodynamics Shacklock was an excellent technical read. In this post we lay out some nervous system basics, and

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Treatment of Shredded Cheese of the Hip: A Case Report and Rant

A Long Day I officially eclipsed my longest work day ever. Started seeing patients at 7:30 am and finished training my last client at 10 pm. So exhausting, but the bright side is my new schedule prevents me from waking up that early ever again! Hooray for sleeping in…sort of. I figured while I had some time in the airport before my next course, I would write a little something about a patient I evaluated right before my lunch break on this long day. Needless to say, I didn’t get much of a break. Her Story This lovely lady is a nurse with a history of chronic left hip pain. She has predominately been treated surgically via labral repairs and muscle reattachment. Her most recent symptom exacerbation involved putting on her socks about a month prior. She heard a pop as she bent over and could not walk. She initially saw two ortho docs. One specializes in total hips, the other in scopes.  Since she was not appropriate for a total hip, this doc referred this lady to his associate. After some imaging was done, she found out that she could not have surgery because she had several muscle tears. Or in the language that the doctor used: “I have nothing to work with. Your hip is shredded up like cheese.” This lady knew no other treatment but surgery, and hearing this news was devastating for her. Thoughts of a brutish life and an end to her fulfilling job flooded

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Course Notes: PRI Impingement and Instability

Soooooooooo Dense It has been a long, busy, and great few weeks for me. After attending a cluster of courses, playing around with some new jobs, moving, and working, I got some time to settle down and review PRI’s I&I material. I traveled to Phoenix to take this course. My man James Anderson taught and several good friends attended. James did not disappoint. I&I was easily one of, if not the best course I have ever taken. You did it again PRI! The only real disappointment was leaving Arizona. The temperature was in the 80’s and the sun was shining. Now here I am in the Midwest with the temp in the mid-20’s. Why did I stay here again? 🙂 This course combined and fleshed out the concepts of respiration and myokin, and added so many more layers onto what we previously learned. I&I was what DNS C should have been. I left the course with many answers, but double the questions. You truly cannot appreciate how complex the nervous system is, and how the total body responds to perceived threat until you delve into this material. I am so excited to learn more. This course had so much information regarding the entire body that there is no way I could post all the relevant info and do it justice. It really was a 4 day course done in 2. So here are a few of the gems I got from this weekend. The PRI Basis The course started off

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