Tag: TMJ

All About the Neck

A comprehensive look at cervical biomechanics and exercise The Wu-Tang clan once said “Protect Ya Neck,” but how in the heck can you do that if you don’t know the biomechanics?????? The neck can be quite complicated considering all the factors that influence it’s dynamics: Ribcage position Thoracic spine Hyoid bone Cranium Temperomandibular joint OH MY! Yet despite all of these influences, there are simple, useful heuristics you can follow that can lead to favorable changes in neck mobility! Want to make the neck, cranium, and more ridiculously simple to understand and apply? Then tune in for Movement Debrief Episode 125.

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Introduction to Orofacial Myofunctional Therapy Course Review

How improving tongue mobility can impact sleep and nasal breathing I hit a plateau. I was getting good results with many clients. I was making infrasternal angles dynamic, restoring hip flexion and extension, and getting ribcage mobility on fleek. Yet there were still some folks who I couldn’t get the symptom change they needed. Either they had really stiff necks, craniofacial issues, or difficulty sleeping. I knew I was missing something. Then I found myofunctional therapy. My buddy Joe Cicinelli, my myofunctional therapist, gave me some tongue exercises surrounding my tongue-tie release surgery, and I noticed some interesting changes with myself. My neck felt looser, I was sleeping better, and just overall feeling better. I decided to experiment and try a few activities here and there on some clients. With having only a rudimentary understanding, I started seeing some of those troubling cases improve. Necks were less tight. Sleep was improving, jaw pain was vanishing. I needed to learn more. That’s when I came across the Academy of Orofacial Myofunctional Therapy (AOMT) and saw they offered an introductory course. I was in. Four days later, a gap was filled. Having applied these techniques to several patients, many of those troubled cases were not so troubling. Although I was addressing airway with most of my treatments, I neglected the uppermost portions of it. The folks at AOMT give you that and then some. With this course, we deep-dived into anatomy, evidence, assessment, treatment, and business. You really get a total package

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The Unsexy Side of PT

Struggle with mouth breathing? Much of the stuff taught on my site focuses on maximizing your breathing skills from the neck on down, but what happens when that is not enough? What if you still have issues with neck or jaw symptoms? Or worse yet, struggle with sleep? These are the topics we dive into on The Optimize Your Capacity podcast I did recently. You’ll learn all types of things featured in the netherworld of performance, including: Craniocervical posture and how to test for movement limitations in this region The “ideal” tongue posture to promote nasal breathing What a proper swallow entails to reduce neck strain What the keys are to having a dynamic respiratory strategy that maximizes movement options through the body Is there a “best” posture to sleep in? That depends on your body 🙂 and more! Click the links below to check it out! The Unsexy Side of PT: Zac Cupples (Apple Podcasts) Spotify Stitcher

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Mandibular Retrusion, GIRD, and Distance Assessment – Movement Debrief Episode 85

Movement Debrief Episode 85 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: What is the relationship of mandibular in relation to the head and spine? What could be a negative consequence of the retruded mandible? What treatment strategies would you use to improve it? What is GIRD? Does my hierarchy for improving movement change with someone who has GIRD? How would you improve GIRD? How do I perform an assessment with a distance client?

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Frequently Asked Questions

Over the last year I’ve been asked a bunch of questions, and I’ve tried to answer them immediately. Instead of sifting through all my Movement Debriefs to get your answer, maybe you just want to get a quick answer and then go apply what you learned. Or maybe you can only stand listening to me for so long. I GET IT! Well, look no further. Below is a link to every question that I have answered thus far on my Movement Debriefs. While I won’t continually update this post, going to my FAQ page will be updated after each debrief. If you have a question, just sign up for my newsletter, and when the next email comes by, just hit reply and I will do my darndest to answer yours. [yikes-mailchimp form=”1″ submit=”Yeah, I want Zac to A my Q”] Learn away my fam! Continuing Education   PRI vs. DNS Exercise Coaching Anchoring Old Movements to New Coaching Progressions Getting Changes to Stick Home Exercise Execution Lower Body Death of the Vertical Tibia Slideboards Squats Performance Agility Programming Exercise Programming Periodizing Physical Therapy Sessions Upper Body Dead Hangs   Overhead Pressing Pushups vs. Quad Sets   Health and Wellness The Off-Switch Sleeping Tips for New Parents Stress Response Taking care of your health Personal Development Daily Routines Building Daily Routines Deciding What to Learn Just in Time Learning Embracing Failure Detaching Refocusing Check Your Ego The Art of the Debrief Work-Life Balance Professional Development Questions to ask an interviewer New

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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 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: The Last Craniocervical Mandibular Restoration Evahhhhh

You’d Think I’d Learn it the First Time Around You’d think, but CCM is one of the hardest PRI courses to conceptualize.  It didn’t hurt that my work was hosting the Ron’s last time teaching this course, as next year we will see Cervical Revolution instead. I took this course last February, and it’s amazing how different the two courses were. We had a room filled with PRI vets, and the Ronimal went into so much more depth this time around. It was such a great course that I would love to share with you some of the clarified concepts. If you want a course overview, take a look here.  The TMCC  The right TMCC pattern consists of the following muscles with the following actions: Cranial retruders/mandibular protruders Right anterior temporalis Right Masseter Right medial pterygoid Sphenobasilar flexors Left rectus capitis posteror major Left obliquus capitis OA flexors that maintain appropriate cervical lordosis Right rectus capitis anterior Right longus capitis Right longus colli If this chain stays tonically active, then there is better accessory muscle respiratory capacity present. These muscles provide the fixed point needed for an apical breathing pattern. We want the muscles on the other side, the left TMCC, to be active. Their activity will allow alternating reciprocal cranial function to be possible. We also call this gait.  Keep Ya Sphenoid Flexed One cranial goal we have is to achieve sphenobasilar flexion, but what does this mean? In the RTMCC pattern, the sphenoid is in an extended position.

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