Tight ITBs, neutral spines and band routines--Oh my!

Well, I've been AWOL from my blog, but that doesn't mean I haven't been watching the Functional Path posts and comments. As usual, I'm in Vern's court on issues regarding the neutral spine stuff and using the band.

Most PTs (and I feel I can speak to this issue here, being a card-carrying offender of the profession) lack a bit of perspective with regard to athletic movement. They tend to discourage people to move at all and don't tend to be paragons of fitness and health themselves. And if they haven't been around elite athletes from many disciplines, they don't really have a perspective on what the body can take and how it really does respond to appropriately applied stressors in a fabulous way.

The body needs a variety of movement to create and maintain strength and mobility. We cannot move perfectly all the time. That doesn't mean I don't harp on people about good mechanics with lifting! We can teach ourselves more efficient ways to move for performance and health. I am of the ilk that this doesn't happen best in supine; we can evaluate contributors to poor movement in non-weightbearing positions, but you must also evaluate and train in the context of weight-bearing and gravity. That's how to teach systems (and it is a SYSTEM) to coordinate and stabilize and move well.

Anyway, I made a little commentary on the subject. It shows the good, the bad and the ugly about movement & training, with a particular emphasis on that crazy human spine. See what you think. In the end, it is all about function and teaching people better and best practices, given their particular tasks.

Comments

Anonymous said…
A picture is worth a thousand words.
I loved your little commentary video! A great tool for clearly communicating your message with creativity, and wit.

Jill
8:57 AM
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