Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Shoulder Flexion to Drive Cervical Rotation

How much water did you drink today?

Just going to keep reminding you.  Besides bringing in new healthy habits to start or keep in 2011, one of the things I'm going to do is start a what have I learned lately segment.  

I've always payed close attention to the old saying, "Have you had a lot of experience, or the same experience over and over?  That's always reminded me, that my bodywork therapy is always evolving.  No person is ever treated the same when it comes to manual therapy/chiropractic/strength training.  Hopefully I learn a little something from each patient encounter.  

One thing I've played around with with great success the last few weeks is using shoulder flexion to facilitate better cervical rotation when there is scalene tightness present.  After treating the neck with Active Release Technique and/or Cervical adjustments I will recheck the cervical rotation.  

Often times, if I have the patient raise the arm up and retest the cervical rotation it increases.  I then have them concentrate on keeping that rotation as they slowly lower the arm.  This is repeated for 5-8 reps.  It's a great home exercise.  

This will be more significant for patients that have very, very limited rotation to begin with.  It gets the ball rolling so to speak.  It will help keep the gains you make in your office.   

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