SARAH COURT, PT, DPT, E-RYT

Physical Therapist, movement mentor, yoga teacher trainer.

Research

What To Do With Your Foam Roller

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What to Do With

Your Foam Roller

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(Now that you’re not foam rolling anymore)

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Ok, so just to clarify – you can still foam roll all you want on it. Roll your heart out. Recently, more and more studies are showing that a more pliable and targeted tool will be more effective for making the kind of change to the tissues that you’re probably looking for.

However! One of my Ground Rules in Quantum Leap is “Keep Everything.” If foam rolling gives you pain relief, or you think it’s fun – go for it. There’s no reason to throw anything away – either you repurpose it, or you file it away for very specific useages.

When not being used for rolling, one of my favorite ways to use the foam roller is to work on trunk stability and core strength. I’m demonstrating a few ideas in the video – try them out, let me know what you think, and tell me about your cool innovative uses for your foam roller!

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If foam rolling gives you pain relief, or you think it’s fun – go for it.

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For lots of people with neck pain, their cervical range of motion – the movements they are able to do with their neck – become limited as a protective mechanism. If you’ve had neck pain for a while, even when it has resolved, you may still hang on to those learned movement limitations, instead of returning to full range of motion.

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Those limitations often then lead to compensatory movements in order to accomplish a task. For example, if you have limited neck rotation, but you need to look over your shoulder to reach into the back seat of your car, you might end up pulling your neck into a sidebend or extension to get around what you are lacking in rotation. This compensation can lead to a lot of shearing forces into the cervical vertebrae, and thus in itself create new pain and problems for the bones and muscles of your neck.

In this video, I demonstrate a simple but extremely effective exercise to isolate rotation of the neck and how to perform it without any compensatory movements. The key is to pin one spot on the top of your head to the wall and not to deviate from that spot, even if it means the amount of rotation that you are doing feels more limited than usual. This precision will teach your neck how to do pure rotation again, and if you practice this exercise it should both a) make your neck feel better and b) actually start to help you regain proper neck rotation movement in your life.

Try it out, and let me know how you like it in the comments!

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If you have limited neck rotation, but you need to look over your shoulder to reach into the back seat of your car, you might end up pulling your neck into a sidebend or extension to get around what you are lacking in rotation.

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What is Bandwidth?

by Leave a Comment

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BLOG

 

What is Bandwidth?

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And how do I use it in my teaching?

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As movement teachers, we are often torn between two competing schools of thought around how we teach. Generally speaking, the two options are: do I control with intense precision every movement that my students make, so that they never do a movement that is ‘wrong,’ or do I allow a more freeform approach, so that they can let their bodies move in all sorts of positions and ways before they settle into where I want them to be?

In the world of motor learning, this is an important topic to understand, and it’s called bandwidth. Bandwidth is the margin of error that I allow my students to make – in other words, how much I allow them to be in the ‘not pose’ so that they can feel where the ‘actual pose’ is.

In this video, I discuss with yoga teacher Amanda Tripp the value of bandwidth, and how a little more leeway in your students’ movements might lead to greater overall retention of what you want them to learn.

What’s your approach as a teacher, and what impacted your decision to teach that way? Let me know in the comments!

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Bandwidth is the margin of error that I allow my students to make
– in other words, how much I allow them to be in the ‘not pose’
so that they can feel where the ‘actual pose’ is.

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As movement teachers, we are often torn between two competing schools of thought around how we teach. Generally speaking, the two options are: do I control with intense precision every movement that my students make, so that they never do a movement that is ‘wrong,’ or do I allow a more freeform approach, so that they can let their bodies move in all sorts of positions and ways before they settle into where I want them to be?

[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text admin_label=”Blog Text” _builder_version=”3.0.89″ background_layout=”light” text_font=”HelveticaNeueMedium|300|||||||” text_letter_spacing=”2px”]

In the world of motor learning, this is an important topic to understand, and it’s called bandwidth. Bandwidth is the margin of error that I allow my students to make – in other words, how much I allow them to be in the ‘not pose’ so that they can feel where the ‘actual pose’ is.

In this video, I discuss with yoga teacher Amanda Tripp the value of bandwidth, and how a little more leeway in your students’ movements might lead to greater overall retention of what you want them to learn.

What’s your approach as a teacher, and what impacted your decision to teach that way? Let me know in the comments!

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Bandwidth is the margin of error that I allow my students to make – in other words, how much I allow them to be in the ‘not pose’ so that they can feel where the ‘actual pose’ is.

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Isometric Contractions For Pain Relief

by Leave a Comment

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Isometic

Contractions For

Pain Relief

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Should I use them with my clients?

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Something that´s been on my radar lately is the study of isometric muscle contraction and its relationship to pain relief. If that sentence made you say, ¨Huh?¨ – let´s back up and review.

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Something that´s been on my radar lately is the study of isometric muscle contraction and its relationship to pain relief. If that sentence made you say, ¨Huh?¨ – let´s back up and review.

Generally speaking. We can categorize muscle contractions into 3 categories.

1. Concentric – when the muscle is getting shorter (like my biceps when I pick up my coffee to take a sip)
2. Isometric – when the muscle is contracting without changing lengt (like my biceps as i´m holding my coffee still to take a sip)
3. Eccentric – when the muscle is getting longer (like my biceps as I then put my coffee back down without dropping it)

In the rehab world, eccentric gets a lot of attention because it´s been proven to help a lot with tendon repair. And at the same time, we know that an eccentric contraction actually loads the muscle more than a concentric contraction – by about 40% more- so it´s a quicker way to make a muscle stronger.

But in the past few years, more research is been done on how to use isometric contractions, especially for people who are in pain, as a way to induce pain-free muscle contraction, and start to re-wire the brain´s pain map about movement.

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What research is starting to show is that for some people, in some instances, an isometric contraction is the way to help them start to create movement without pain.

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The big thing to take away is this: when people have pain when they move, they develop a fear of the movement causing pain in the future (it´s even got a name: kinesiophobia). From modern pain science, we know that in order to get someone healthy and moving again, we have to find ways for them to move that don’t have pain attached. What research is starting to show is that for some people, in some instances, an isometric contraction is the way to help them start create movement without pain.

Watch the video for demonstration of how you could do this for your client, and how you could then progress it or regress it as needed.

Ultimately, this will be an ‘it depends’- some people will tolerate it, and some won´t – but it´s a great tool to add to your toolbox, especially if you are working with someone who is in pain and is now afraid to move.

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