Movement Education
Musculoskeletal injuries and pain can have complex symptom presentations with multiple factors spanning physiology, anatomy and psychology. One modality or therapeutic technique is often marginally effective in treating many injuries because of these multiple factors; chronic pain being one of the most complicated and challenging client populations I work with. Successful treatment of sports injuries involves an understanding of the sport environment, training program, equipment and biomechanics of the particular sport. Often sports injuries are the result of “movement impairments”, or dysfunctional movement patterns. Patterns that either lead to injury or are adaptive due to compensation because of injury.
Changing movement patterns or biomechanics starts w/focusing on the internal/external awareness process of how movement is created. A baseball player w/a sore shoulder may not be aware that the throwing hand wrist is weak, or that the back foot is not allowing the trailing hip to decelerate appropriately as the ball is released. No amount of therapy can overcome poor biomechanics. I often use video analysis in my assessment process. Having the athlete demonstrate their sport movements too will uncover the culprite behind their injury.
Every injured client presents with a unique story and history. Helping them get better means knowing where they’ve been, where are they now and where they want to go in terms of level of functionality. My goal is to transition every injured client from an injured/rehab status to someone proactively managing their condition through a commitment to working on wellness and fitness. Keeping the focus on functionality and fitness is the sports medicine model of injury treatment that I’ve found to be extremely successful.
Manual Therapy
- Neuromuscular Therapy
- Strain/Counterstrain
- Muscle Energy Technique
- Myofascial Release
- Massage Therapy
Flexibility
- Active Isolated Stretching
- PNF
- Yoga
{ Movement Education }
The movement education component of my work I developed over years of treating injuries, integrating manual therapy with movement, exercise and functional anatomy. In my blog post I write about the process of integration and sense of disconnection one can feel due to the injury process. The movement education component of the therapeutic work can be subtle and profound since it focuses on the physical and perceptual sense of the self.