Tag: sympathetic

Hamstrings, Mental Resiliency, and Ankle Dorsiflexion – Movement Debrief Episode 47

Movement Debrief Episode 47 is in the books. Below is a copy of the video for your viewing pleasure, and audio if you can’t stand looking at me. Here is the set list: Do the hamstrings play a role with respiration? How does one train hamstrings? Can respiratory training improve mental resiliency and decision-making? How else can one improve decision-making in high stress environments? How do I approach improving ankle dorsiflexion? If you want to watch these live, add me on Facebook or Instagram.They air every Wednesday at 7pm CST. Enjoy! and the audio version…                  Here were the links I mentioned: Sign-up for the Human Matrix September 15-16th here   Here is a link to the Complete Anatomy app Derek Hansen seminar course notes Derek Hansen Extreme Ownership The toe touch to the squat for narrow infrasternal angles The sink squat for wide infrasternal angles The counterweight squat as a terminal progression The Squatting Bar Reach: A Movement Deep Dive The Ultimate Guide to Treating Ankle Sprains Here’s a signup for my newsletter to get nearly 3 hours and 50 pages of content, a free acute:chronic workload calculator, basketball conditioning program, podcasts, and weekend learning goodies: [yikes-mailchimp form=”1″ submit=”Get learning goodies and more”] Hamstrings Mental Resiliency Ankle Dorsiflexion

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Course Notes: Cantrell’s Impingement and Instability, 2015 Edition

Third Time’s a Charm  A trip home and hearing Mike Cantrell preach the good PRI word? I was sold. Impingement and Instability is one of those courses that I could take yearly and still get so many gems. In fact, I probably will end up taking it yearly—it’s that good. I took I&I last year with Cantrell (and the year before that with James), and the IFAST rendition was a completely different course. Cantrell provided the most PRI clinical applications I have seen at any course, which is why he continues to be one of my favorite people to learn from. Basically, if you haven’t learned from Mike yet, I pity you. Get to it! I have way too many gems in my notes to discuss, so here are a few big takeaways.

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Course Notes: PRI Cervical Revolution REMIX

Note: I made some errors on the first rendition of this blog that were corrected after speaking with Eric Oetter. Courtesy to him, Lori Thomsen, and Ron Hruska for cleaning up some concepts. Four Months Later When the Lori Thomsen says to come to Cervical Revolution, you kinda have to listen. I was slightly hesitant to attend since I had taken this course back in January. I mean, it was only the 3rd course rendition. How much could have changed? Holy schnikes! It is simply amazing what four months of polishing can do. It was as though I attended a completely different course. Did I get it all figured out? No. But the clarity gained this weekend left me feeling a lot better about this very complex material. This is a course that will only continue to get better with time; if you have a chance to attend please do. Let’s now have a moment of clarity.   Biomechanics 101 The craniocervical region is the most mobile section of the vertebral column. This mobility allows regional sensorimotor receptors to provide the brain accurate information on occipital position and movement. The neck moves with particular biomechanics. Fryette’s laws suggest that the cervical spine produces ipsilateral spinal coupling in rotation and sidebending. The OA joint, on the other hand, couples contralaterally. C2 is the regulator of cervical spine motion; much like the first rib regulates rib cage movement. C2 is also important for the mandible, as it balances the cervical spine during mandibular

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Course Notes: PRI Interdisciplinary Integration 2015

A Stellar Symposium Back in April I had the pleasure of finally attending PRI’s annual symposium, and what an excellent learning experience. The theme this year was working with high-powered, extension-driven individuals. The amount of interdisciplinary overlap in each presentation made for a seamless symposium. Common themes included the brain, stress response, HRV, resilience, and drive. These are things altered in individuals who are highly successful, but may come at a cost to body systems. If you work with business owners, CEOs, high-level athletes and coaches, high level positions, straight-A students, special forces, and supermoms, this symposium was for you. And let’s face it; we are both in this category! There were so many pearls in each presentation that I wish I could write, but let’s view the course a-ha’s. The Wise Words of Ron Ron Hruska gave four excellent talks at this symposium regarding high performers and occlusion. Let’s dive into the master’s mind. People, PRI does not think extension is bad. Extension is a gift that drives us to excel. Individuals who have high self-efficacy must often “over-extend” themselves. This drive often requires system extension. Extension is a consequence, and probably a necessary adaptation, of success. If this drive must be reduced to increase function and/or alter symptoms in these individuals, we have to turn down the volume knob. How can we power down these individuals? Limit alternate choices – These folks take a wide view of a task Set boundaries – These folks attribute failure to external factors Making initial

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The Road to an Alternating and Reciprocal Warrior: You down with ENT?

This spans an entire treatment over a year’s time. Here’s part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4   “Yeah you know me.” ~ Naughty By Nature  You know how sometimes when you are treating someone that individual eventually reveals fairly important information that he or she forgot about. Yeah that was totally me. I’ve always had a stuffy nose as far back as I can remember; especially in the winter. The only time breathing felt incredibly easy was when I was eating paleo in college. I have progressively been losing my sense of smell as well. Must be old age right? When I spoke with Lori Thomsen about my recent experience, she mentioned at Pelvis that attaining neutrality in certain areas but not others could lead to a “pressure cooker” phenomenon. For example, if I have someone with a neutral neck and thorax, lower extremity symptoms may possibly be more common. In my case, I had a neutral pelvis at the time my wisdom teeth were pulled. Pull out wisdom teeth and my nasal airway goes crazy. Guess where the pressure went? It was time to see an ENT. ENT Begins After viewing my CT scan and airway, my ENT concluded I have patho-scoliosis. More specifically, airway scoliosis. He found a deviated septum and some enlarged turbinates. These two factors could have a large impact on my breathing capabilities. To me this made a lot of sense. If you read this article, a nostril will drive air to the ipsilateral lung.

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Course Notes: Pelvis Restoration Reflections

Pelvises Were Restored It was another great PRI weekend and I was fortunate enough to host the hilarious Lori Thomsen to teach her baby, Pelvis Restoration. Lori is a very good friend of mine, and we happened to have two of our mentees at the course as well. Needless to say it was a fun family get-together. Lori was absolutely on fire this weekend clearing up concepts for me and she aptly applied the PRI principles on multiple levels. She has a very systematic approach to the course, and is a great person to learn from, especially if you are a PRI noob. Here were some of the big concepts I shall reflect on. If you want the entire course lowdown, read the first time I took the course here.  Extension = Closing Multiple Systems  This right here is for you nerve heads. It turns out the pelvis is an incredibly neurologically rich area. What happens if a drive my pelvis into a position of extension for a prolonged period of time? I’ve written a lot about how Shacklock teaches closing and opening dysfunctions with the nervous system. An extended position here over time would increase tension brought along the pelvic nerves. Increased tension = decreased bloodflow = sensitivity. We can’t just limit it to nerves however, the same would occur in the vasculature and lymphatic system. We get stagnation of many vessels. Perhaps we need to think of extension as system closure; a system closing problem. Flexion will be

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It’s the Salient Detection System, Stupid

 Can you tell the difference among pain, depression, and pleasure? From a neurotransmitter perspective, the answer is no (see here and here). How is it that three very different states can be so neurologically similar? I feel the commonality that the nervous system purports reflects a system that responds to stimuli that are deviations from the norm. We call these instances by this word: Salient. Doesn’t that make your loins quiver? Let’s discuss how it works. Here’s your recommended reading. 1. The pain matrix reloaded: a salience detection system for the body (Thanks Sigurd) 2. Stress signalling pathways that impair prefrontal cortex structure and function (Thanks Son) 3. From the neuromatrix to the pain matrix (and back) [Note: Most of this article is an amalgamation of the three articles that I cited above and my own thoughts. Rather then cite every sentence AMA-style, I’ll give the credit to these guys above. Read ‘em and figure out how I put this together. For those who are sticklers for proper reference formatting, the type I am using is KMA-style citation.*] The Pain Neuromatrix Myth Hate to break it to you, but pain ain’t so special. Here’s why. If you follow modern pain science, you may often hear the term pain neurosignature or neurotag. This phrase is meant to describe a cluster of brain areas that are active during a pain experience. Information that can contribute to a pain experience travels to several areas. Some of the big players are the primary and secondary somatosensory cortices (all the

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The Road to an Alternating and Reciprocal Warrior: Wisdom Teeth Extraction

This spans an entire treatment over a year’s time. Here’s part 1 Part 2 Part 3 The Saga Continues I’ve been through vision, I’ve had dental integration, I’ve put in the PRI activity homework, maximized my PRI testing, and feel a new man. Yet neutrality eludes me. It is a state of mind I could once feel by the power of glasses and splints, but the nervous system learns and accommodates. I topped out. But of course, I knew that would be the case from my very first session with Ron. “You gotta get those wisdom teeth pulled.” ~Ron Hruska By virtue of the dentist I integrate with, the time came. And here are the results. Zac B.E. (Before Extraction) So at this point in my life the large HRV gains I initially had were dropping and I was still having some neck tension. Training was feeling so-so. Test-wise, the videos below show what I look like. Here’s my squat And my toe touch. Upper quadrant tests And lower quadrant tests Mandibular movements And some cervical movements My pelvis is consistently neutral and I can shift and squat with the best of ‘em. But I still present with restrictions in my thorax, neck, and mandible (BBC/RTMCC). These limitations are likely present because of a  bony block called wisdom teeth. As you can see, the maxillary (top side) wisdom teeth limit the excurision of my lateral pterygoids for lateral trusive movements. My hope is by removing these guys I will get

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9 weeks with Bane, I mean Zac…Oops Sorry Wrong CI

Note from Zac: This is my first guest post, and to start things up is the one and only Trevor Rappa. Trevor was my intern for the past 9 weeks and he absolutely killed it. Here is his story. It’s very exciting for me to get to write a guest post for Zac’s blog that I have read so many times and learned so much from. The experience I have had with him over these past 9 weeks has been incredible and I hope to share some of it with all of you that read this. He challenged me to think critically in every aspect of patient interaction: how I first greet them, which side of them I sit on, the words I use, and how I explain to the patient why I chose the exercises they’ll go home with. All of this was to create a non-threatening environment to help to patient achieve the best results they can. He also taught me how to educate patients with a TNE approach, incorporate other interventions such as mirror therapy into a PRI based treatment model, and deepened my understanding of the neurologic concepts behind performance. Therapeutic Neuroscience Education Perception of threat can lead to a painful experience which will cause a change in behavior. It’s the PT’s role to introduce a salient stimulus to attenuate the perception of threat in order to cause a positive change in experience and behavior (Zac and I came up with that, I really like it). Pain

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Course Notes: PRI Cervical Revolution

Where are all the People? I recently made the trek to Vermont for the first rendition of PRI’s Cervical Revolution course; a course in which the attendees doubled the population of the entire state. It was nice to go to the class with a bunch of old friends. You always learn better that way, and I couldn’t have been more excited to get the band back together. And even more so, I got to meet a lot of good folks for the first time. It was a real treat. This course was meant to update the former craniocervical mandibular restoration course (which I reviewed here and here), with extra emphasis on the cervical spine and OA joint. In this blog however, I will not touch much on the cervical spine positioning. I still have several questions regarding the mechanics. Some spots within the manual seemed to be conflicting; the blessing and curse of a first run-through. I will update this piece once I get these points figured out. That said, the revolution helped fine tune the dental integration process for me. I have been working a bit with a dentist, and I have a bit more insight in terms of what devices they are using for whom. Let’s go through my big a-ha moments. Smudging 901 The human body is symmetrically asymmetrical. When we have capacity to alternate and reciprocate, we are able to separate the body into parts to form a whole. If you lack integration, then there are

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Course Notes: Cantrell’s Myokin Reflections

Third Time’s a Charm Mike Cantrell was in my neighborhood to teach Myokinematic Restoration by the folks at PRI. And I couldn’t resist. This is the third time I have taken this course, a course I feel I know like the back of my hand, yet Mike gave me several clinical gems that I want to share with y’all. This post is going to be a quick one. If you want a little more depth, take a look at my previous myokin posts (See James Anderson and Jen Poulin). Or better yet, take a PRI course for cryin’ out loud. Hip Extension, We Need That Yo.  Sagittal plane is your first piece needed to create triplanar activity. Since this is a lumbopelvic course, we look at getting hip extension as high priority. If I am unable to extend my hip, here’s what I could try to use to do it: Back SI joint compression Anterior hip laxity Gastrocnemius and soleus. We use two tests to see if we have hip extension: adduction drop (modified ober’s test) and extension drop (Thomas test). The adduction drop will look at your capacity to get into the sagittal and frontal plane, and the extension drop test will look at your anterior hip ligamentous integrity. A positive extension drop is a good thing if you are in the LAIC pattern. It means you didn’t overstretch your iliofemoral and pubofemoral ligaments. Well done! The reason why this test is not a hip flexor length test has to

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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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