Monday, April 05, 2010

"Know thy Self"

As true now as it was at the temple at Delphi and I keep learning more about "me" all the time...

Z Health is one of the methods that advocates regaining full range of motion and control at all your joints. (for info on the neurological, visual and vestibular aspects of your body Z Health has amazing information - but it is another tool and another source of information - my preferred model is the FMS and implement pieces of the other within that framework.)
Why bring this up?
My body lacks motion at a joint or two...
I lack a fairly significant amount of supination (turning my palm up) on my Left arm.
This means that all the years of all the reps of all the weight during my deadlifting with my left arm palm up (supinated) and right arm palm down (alternating grip) was HUGELY compensated and might be the reason my right lower back ended up being an injury area.
Soft tissue work, joint mobility drills, and when i return to deadlifting I will be using a double overhand grip or hook grip to remove the compensation.

In recent weeks I have had 4 different clinicians (Chiros, massage therapists) point out that I have the tightest skin/fascia over my lower back that they have ever felt.
Meaning that while in most areas of the body you can pick up and "roll" the skin my lower back skin is adhered to my fascia and my fascia has adhered to everything else...not good.
Reading Anatomy Trains by Myers will be a focus as will a variety of stretches, postures and postions to open this skin and fascial area.
This means that all of the work I have done to open my hips will hopefully allow me to more effectively open the lower back. And that now that my abs are "working" (post hernia surgery) I should be able to balance the abs with the thorocolumbar area as the fascia opens.

The Chicken or the Egg...???
Did my left arm lose supination as a result of my lower back or was it my grip work or some other posture, position or activity or was it always like that?
Was my lower back fascia always this restricted or was it deadlifting or some other posture, position or activity?
Which came first...chicken or egg...and does it matter?

I am where I am and having learned more about myself I will address these areas and move along the path...

5 comments:

Laree Draper said...

Hey, Brett, I've had a couple of amazing fascial release experiences using a myo ball from Perform Better.

http://www.performbetter.com/detail.aspx_Q_ID_E_5182_A_CategoryID_E_486

You'd lie over it, but instead of the normal foam rolling way, it's more sort of at an angle. Then, don't roll, just wait it out at that angle until it releases.

The feeling that spreads is remarkable, and you can move along with it to increase the range a few inches.

I had it work in four or five different spots, one time it "went" about eight inches.

Chris said...

Anatomy Trains is a superb book. I've always wondered what impact surgery has on the fascia. If you are cutting through it will the scars potentially cause problems elsewhere in the body due to the damaged fascia?

Mike T Nelson said...

Brett,

Have you played with specific asymmetric loaded work?

Meaning, perhaps pressing a lighter kettlebell from a left lunge with left rotation is beneficial? This is just an example, but you can think of others.

I think the fastest way to re-adapt tissue is through mechanical loading.

If you are asymmetric, starting at the opposite of the motion that caused the asymmetry is the best place to start.

If your car pulls to the right, you need to turn the wheel left.

The body is a 3D structure and many times doing only "2D" single leg work is not enough.

Let me know if that is helpful.

rock on
Mike T Nelson PhD(c)
Extreme Human Performance

Mike T Nelson said...

Chris,

I am not Brett, but my thought is that any time cutting of tissue is done it will alter the structure (duh, I know).

Long term, we need to make sure that tissue can handle the "new" loads.

Tissue is ALWAYS adapting, so we need to load it correctly to ensure the adaptation is correct (collagen streaming, etc)

Scar tissue does not have the same properties, but we can get it to remodel a bit too with proper loading in a progressive manner.

Whole body movement need to be analyzed also to make sure we are not adding new compensations.

Let me know if that answered your question or not.

Interested in others thoughts too

rock on
Mike T Nelson PhD(c)
Extreme Human Performance

Brett Jones said...

Thank Mike

Yes the body is different after surgery and especially after they implant a big'ol piece of mesh with "tacks" and sutures and add to that the fact that I have decided to embark on releasing this fascia and repatterning becomes even more important.

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