therapy – ZacCupples.com

February 18, 2019 Zac Cupples

Optimizing Human Performance, the Importance of Communication Skills, and an Awesome Ronald Reagan Impression

Maximizing the health and performance goals of your clients requires several qualities. While having a model surrounding movement and other health factors are incredibly important, how often do we consider the health of ourselves in the equation? If you do not have a healthy social life, difficulty interacting with other people, and continue to improve our knowledge base, how can we achieve buy-in? The best plan will not work. That and so much more happened in a recent podcast I did with my good friend Robbie Bourke. In this discussion, we touch on several topics: My background What are the good and not so good things that I currently see with the physical therapy and human performance professions, and what solutions I offer for the not so good things he is seeing How can we teach and encourage critical thinking skills? My model to optimize human performance The importance of having a social network My growth so far as a human being How I have used adversities in his life to facilitate my communication when working with clients? When do we stop making allowances for people’s behavior? My in person assessment process with a patient What have been the biggest lessons I’ve learned so far in my life How do I learn? What are my top resource? My amazing Ronald Reagan impression If I had only 1 year left on planet Earth – how would I spend that year and why? If I could invite 5 people to dinner, dead

September 9, 2013 Zac Cupples

Online Consult with The Manual Therapist

The Rundown My good friend Erson Religioso of The Manual Therapist fame recently contacted me to do a consult for some back/leg trouble he has been having. It was a very interesting eval for many reasons. Online consults are a completely different animal, as you cannot do any hands-on testing. Moreover, when you have a therapist who is initiated into pain neuroscience, you don’t have to go so much the Explain Pain route 🙂 So with this eval, we looked at things a lot through a PRI lens, and were able to get him strategies to modulate his pain experience. The eval runs a smidge over 1 hour, so here are some vids with a quick rundown. Subjective – Getting paresthesia down the R LE that began 2 weeks ago after a car ride…has peripheralized since initial event. – Symptoms are aggravated with static sitting or standing…onset ranging from seconds to minutes. – Has tried loading/unloading MDT strategies, neurodynamics, Mulligan techniques, IASTM, compression wrapping, etc…all to no avail. Objective (major findings) – Limited B Apley’s scratch (1 per FMS scoring) – Negative slump and ASLR – Painful lumbar motions of extension, right rotation and sidebend. R sidebend was limited. – Negative thomas test on left, positive on right – Slight limitations in active seated hip IR B, R>L. – Adduction lift scores 1/5 B. My Impression If I were to classify Erson, it seems his symptoms would seems to be more dominant as peripheral nociceptive ischemic and central sensitivity (he stated he has

August 1, 2013 Zac Cupples

Why Everything Works (and Doesn’t Work)

A Great Place to Be I was recently at my home away from home, IFAST. Every time I go here the following occurs: I have an amazing time with amazing people. I learn a ton and realize how little I really know. Prolific discussions are had. I end up purchasing WAY too many books as soon as I get home. As many of you know, Bill Hartman and I appreciate a PRI philosophy. When I go to IFAST, we inevitably experiment with many different things. This weekend, Bill and I were playing with how many different ways we could achieve full right shoulder internal rotation on my good friend Lance and the lovely IFAST intern Liz. Here was everything that gave these people full motion. Soft tissue mobilization to the infraspinatus. Manually assisted breathing. Tickling the right side of the face. Tapping the left hamstring. Smacking the right glute max (yes, I spanked someone). Having someone think about contracting their right glute max as hard as possible. Having someone watch me breathe with a left sidebend. Reflex locomotion. Now of course, that does not mean you should be spanking your patients and clients with shoulder issues (but if you do make sure it is the right glute), but we have to ask why did all of these different techniques–even the weird ones– achieve the same outcome we wanted? Why Things Work Joseph Brence, a gentleman whose material I enjoy, recently posted a blog showing several different techniques and polling his