PrepareToPerform.net
  • Home
  • Shop
  • Masterclasses
    • Masterclass Summit 2020
    • Masterclass Bundle 1
    • The 3 Unstoppable Ways to Get Your Ideal Career In Sport
    • Scott Hopson: Stress & Expression
    • How to implement a movement philosophy approach in a first division professional soccer team. A real case scenario with 3 years follow up
    • Max Velocity Training For Physios
    • Re-Designing Your Warm-Up To Increase Effectiveness Through Co-Operative Strength And Physical Therapy
    • Neuromobilisation for recovery
    • How Strong Is Strong Enough?
    • Clinical reasoning stems disruptive innovation - “Change or be changed"
    • Alternative Physiotherapy Strategies For Calf Injuries
    • Advanced Palpation Masterclass
  • Book
  • Sports Physiotherapy
    • Telehealth Sports & Spinal Physiotherapy Consultations
    • Fees and Conditions
    • Pre-Physio Questionnaire
    • Covid19 Checklist
  • Articles
  • About
  • Contact
  • Video Drills
  • Appearing on these podcasts
  • Exercise Tubing Program

"If you ain't living on the edge, you're taking up space"

Cue for change rather than coach for change

30/5/2017

0 Comments

 
The restoration of stability and motor control should progress after resolution or at least noted improvement in “bad energy” (pain, inflammation and toxins), and “blocked energy” (limited and asymmetry mobility) has occurred. The restoration of motor control and stability occurs best via task and constraint cues that implicitly cause change rather than verbal cues to explicit suggest change. Externally focused movements are more effective and more efficient than internally focused movements. [74, 75]

74.       Marchant, D.C., et al., Instructions to adopt an external focus enhance muscular endurance. Res Q Exerc Sport, 2011. 82(3): p. 466-73.
75.       Marchant, D.C., Attentional Focusing Instructions and Force Production. Front Psychol, 2010. 1.

Picture
 In this movement preparation drill, the China Women's Volleyball Team had a strong tendency to pattern their squatting with a flexed trunk. I cued them to touch the hands of the person across from them. When they still dropped hands (and thus trunk into flexion), I changed it to "high-five" their opposite. This introduced wrist extension which stimulated an extension pattern. 
Without verbal coaching, I introduced an external focus that changed behaviour. 

0 Comments

Get in the game, stay in the game, win the game.

19/5/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
We must remember the three P's to get into the game and stay in the game - positions, patterns & power.

Yet, in many sports, these may not matter as much as what happens once in the game – the application of sports-specific skill.

​As such, we must remember that our role, as performance and support staff, is to give athletes back to their technical and tactical coaches. Our role is not to detract from their ability to spend time practicing the game or sport they are in. That is why adaptability to forces, energy and load, ie durability, matters



Read More
0 Comments

When is an Achilles tendon pain or ankle restriction not primarily an Achilles tendon problem or ankle mobility problem?

3/5/2017

1 Comment

 
About 80% of ankle mobility problems are associated with hip and knee mobility problems. 

Let me simplify it. I treat your hip, often the thigh, and the ankle mobility problem goes away. Similarly the achilles pain. 

This ain't a joke. It's common within about 80% of cases. 

Let me explain. When undergoing an assessment, I use the SFMA. It includes 7 fundamental movement patterns, assessed against criteria (Glaws, K. R., et al., 2014)
Within the SFMA is an assessment of lower limb triple flexion, the half-kneeling dorsiflexion test. 
The half-kneeling dorsiflexion test should demonstrate 40-45 degrees of dorsiflexion, or 4 inches (10cm) in tibial tuberosity progressing in front of the toe. The half kneeling dorsiflexion test requires triple flexion (ankle, knee and hip). A person who doesn't get the requisite/minimum 40 degrees in tibia angle doesn't necessarily have an ankle mobility restriction - they have a pattern restriction as measured at tibia angle - the actual restriction could be anywhere in the kinetic chain that impacts triple flexion.

If you did a standing dorsiflexion test, you don't involve the hip and knee to the extent you do in a half kneeling test and you can miss the impact these have at the ankle. As an example, recently a client saw me with bilateral achilles pain. The pain was reproduced in walking on tip toes. The client had 35 degrees tibial angle in the half kneeling dorsiflexion test 
bilaterally, and a positive Modified Thomas Test for anterior lower chain extensibility dysfunction. I treated her anterior thigh for about 6-7 minutes, then retested her walking on her tip toes - she had next-to-nil achilles tendon pain. Her half kneeling tibial angle increased to 41 degrees. How many people would have put her on an eccentric calf program for her achilles tendon problem, or mobilised her ankle or treated her tight calf?

On this occasion, the SFMA revealed a lower anterior thigh tissue extensibility dysfunction. Treating that changed the ability to flex across the hip and knee which permitted further excursion of the knee over the weightbearing ankle in half-kneeling - the result was an increased angle of inclination of the tibia. The significant reduction of achilles tendon pain is not surprising - indeed this is a very common finding. 

The Modified Thomas Test indicated a restriction of tissue extensibility when the hip is extended and knee flexed. Another very common finding is a loss of hip flexion. Treating hip flexion mobility restrictions by joint mobilisation, or hip tissue extensibility treatment, has also commonly seen ankle dorsiflexion increase and achilles tendon pain reduce or abolish.

Rather than say, "give it a try", I'd say, use a systematic assessment to reveal dysfunction - address that and recognise the effect it has on patterns of movement that include parts you'd normally just go straight to. Going straight to a part to treat minimises the likelihood that you'll capture contributing, complicating or causative patterns or other body parts. Missing contributing or complicating factors leaves risk factors for recurrence on the table. 

Not able to get to a live SFMA Level 1, but want to get started?The SFMA Level 1 Online Prerequisite Course is your first step.

The next live SFMA Level 1 course I'm presenting at is on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia, May 27th and 28th. 
​
Glaws, K. R., Juneau, C. M., Becker, L. C., Di Stasi, S. L., & Hewett, T. E. (2014). Intra- and inter-rater reliability of the selective functional movement assessment (sfma). Int J Sports Phys Ther, 9(2), 195-207. 
1 Comment

"Schrodinger's" Exercise.

1/5/2017

0 Comments

 
Schrodingers cat
Last week during a lecture on integrating functional exercise into program design, I declared that every exercise is both functional and non-functional for everyone, until two things happen: 
  1. we define functional; 
  2. we evaluate the person, and their response to the exercise. 

How I define functional will be included in an upcoming article. 
How we evaluate a person and their "function" is to use reliable, discriminately valid, sensitive to change, modifiable and easy to administer processes. You know what that is. 

​Watch this space. 
0 Comments

    Author

    Greg Dea
    Sports Physiotherapist

    Archives

    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    February 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    June 2019
    April 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    November 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    May 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016

    Categories

    All
    Coaching
    Core
    Injury Prevention
    Research Reviews

    RSS Feed

Home

About

Copyright © 2015
  • Home
  • Shop
  • Masterclasses
    • Masterclass Summit 2020
    • Masterclass Bundle 1
    • The 3 Unstoppable Ways to Get Your Ideal Career In Sport
    • Scott Hopson: Stress & Expression
    • How to implement a movement philosophy approach in a first division professional soccer team. A real case scenario with 3 years follow up
    • Max Velocity Training For Physios
    • Re-Designing Your Warm-Up To Increase Effectiveness Through Co-Operative Strength And Physical Therapy
    • Neuromobilisation for recovery
    • How Strong Is Strong Enough?
    • Clinical reasoning stems disruptive innovation - “Change or be changed"
    • Alternative Physiotherapy Strategies For Calf Injuries
    • Advanced Palpation Masterclass
  • Book
  • Sports Physiotherapy
    • Telehealth Sports & Spinal Physiotherapy Consultations
    • Fees and Conditions
    • Pre-Physio Questionnaire
    • Covid19 Checklist
  • Articles
  • About
  • Contact
  • Video Drills
  • Appearing on these podcasts
  • Exercise Tubing Program