Blogs
Friends & ‘Enemies’ (6/24/2021) - Basketball Analogy It’s NBA basketball playoff time, and (when it’s not a foul-fest) I enjoy watching the most graceful athletes in the world do their thing. One of the most spectacular plays in basketball is the alley-oop dunk, where one player passes the ball up near the rim while the other player jumps, catches […]
Attention & Control (5/28/2021) - Interpreting the Reviews Preparing for a backpacking trip into Canyonlands National Park last year, I started looking into getting a new pair of sandals. My beloved Chacos had finally completely fallen apart, and I wanted a style of sandal with a closed toe box for river crossings. Doing research and reading the reviews for a […]
Defending Subjectivity (2/17/2021) - Where to Look? We should include subjective criteria in a PT musculoskeletal evaluation, and movement quality can be assessed as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. What do you think of these statements? Are they self-evident? Or do they seem vaguely heretical? We can sometimes misinterpret calls for evidence based practice as meaning that every item […]
Lumbar Stabilization—Expanded View (1/27/2021) - Previous Topic In our March and April 2020 blogs, we suggested principles of Optimal Movement that we could be teaching our patients: Fascio-Skeletal Weight Bearing Appropriate Distribution of Movement Proportional Use of Synergists Minimization of Unnecessary Effort Application to Low Back Pain Let’s now get more specific by talking about the 800 pound […]
Phases of Motor Learning II (12/9/2020) - In this month’s blog, we will continue to address motor control exercise and the last two phases of motor learning—the associative phase and the autonomous stage. The first phase, the cognitive phase, was addressed in last month’s blog. This was described as the ‘ground floor’ stage of rehab-related postural or movement optimization. This phase is […]
Phases of Motor Learning I (11/10/2020) - There are three distinct phases of motor learning, each with its own unique characteristics and requirements. Therefore, we will need distinct exercise strategies, appropriate to each phase, for learning to optimally transfer from exercise to ADL. In this months’ blog and next, follow brief descriptions of the phases motor learning—applicable whether learning a new skill […]
Motor Control Musings (10/6/2020) - Damage Control My wife and I were having dinner the other day when she gave a quiet moue of distress—she had just bit her tongue. Been there, done that, don’t like it. But it did get me to thinking about how absolutely mind boggling it is that we are not always biting our […]
Limb to Trunk Rapport (9/3/2020) - Starting Off on the Wrong Foot In last month’s blog, the topic was pelvic control—one of the two primary differences between static and dynamic integration philosophies. This month we’ll address the second characteristic of dynamic integrated movement, which features another major divergence from static practices. We’ll talk about how the limbs (arms, legs and […]
Dynamic vs Static Pelvic Control (8/2/2020) - The Boss Who’s in charge of moving the pelvis? Who calls the shots concerning pelvic stability? Who’s the boss when it comes to balancing the pelvis, both front/back and left/right? Where do we point the finger of blame if the pelvis is moving too much or is not moving enough? Who wears the […]
Static Integration Concepts (7/1/2020) - Time to Put it to Rest Movement always needs to be described relationally. Something moves in a particular direction relative to where it started—we need to have two points of reference to define a direction of movement. Additionally, something needs to move relative to something else: The head moves relative to the […]
Article Reviews
