Midweek Thoughts From Koonigsee, Germany

I'm half way through my ten days here in Koonigsee, Germany working the Bobsled World Championships.  This will be the 5th Worlds I've been apart of in some way, either as an athlete or a manual therapist.  It is an exciting time.

Just some things I've been thinking about.  Jamar Hand Dynamometer is a very cool tool.  I've posted before how grip strength when tested regularly can give you an indication of the type of workout that should be performed.  Recently though, I've started using it with upper extremity work.  I've been doing before testing, performing a specific adjustment in the cervical spine and retesting the hand strength.  It's very cool.    Last week, a young musician had some forearm pain and went from 15kg squeeze to 40kg squeeze without any muscular work post adjustment.

I think I've posted on this subject before, but I came across this study doing some reading.  Explosive strength training improves 5k running time.  This study looks at how, without doing 5k training, the 5k times improved with weight lifting.  

A very cool article I read was about phantom pain entitled  V.S. Ramachandons Tales of a Tell Tale Brain.  He is a neurologist that seems to be solving the mystery of phantom pain.  He does this by using a 5 dollar mirror box.  His experiment has shown that the brain is plastic and that new pathways develop in the adult brain.  It also gives a glimpse into a very interesting idea of how vision can modulate pain.  There is also an auditory interview on the link above as well.

This is one of the coolest articles I've read in a while.  Placebos without Deception:  A randomized controlled study in IBS.  It's been known for years about the power of the placebo.  Think this will make you better, it will make you better.  This study looked at what happens when your told that what you're taking is a placebo.  Guess what?  You still get better!  They think it may have something to do with the ritual that your body starts to understand that what you're doing (even as simple as remembering to take a sugar pill) influences the body.  Very interesting.

Enjoy the rest of the week.