Kyle Balzer Physiotherapy

One person’s progression is another person’s lateralization.

Context and understanding principles are more important than memorizing exercise progressions, templates, and programs.

Lateralization: a different exercise than originally intended that will accomplish the same goal.

Can the joint get in position to absorb and adapt to stress?

In this case, the big toe won’t go, so we split squat no mo’.

Rhymes are more effective 😉.

Sinceriously,
Kyle

Poetic, right?

Today I mean things in the more literal sense.

had a great post last week about using the early stages of a getup to constrain the shoulder girdle in a way that forces those pesky muscles that connect the neck and scapula to stabilize the scapula so that the neck can move more “freely.”

Great post from CW, and the inspiration behind my borderline prophetic sentence that could double as a line from a Fallout Boy song.

But, how are they related?

One of the key details implied, but not mentioned, is the role the ground plays in the getup.

When you have a pain or movement issue that presents itself upright, sometimes there’s a solution that exists in the upright position.

Other times, however, a different position can or should be chosen, but why the ground?

It’s great for sensory feedback.

If I said “bend your elbow,” you’d probably have no problem doing that in many positions, with or without your eyes open, one hand behind your back, while hopping on one foot. But if I said, “flex at T10-T11,” in standing most of you would have no idea how to do that. And while the skill of being able to control movement at an individual segment of your spine might not be paramount to function or survival (harder to eat with an immobile elbow than an immobile T10-11!), I do think it’s important for optimizing your spine’s ability to move.

If you take a task that’s borderline impossible in standing, but use the ground to constrain what you don’t want to happen, so that you can then feel what you want to happen, like move at T10-11, you’ve created the ability to perform some movement quality that’s desirable and can then ideally be transferred to other positions, tasks, speeds, loads, etc.

So, yes, I’m a big ground guy.

Sinceriously,
Kyle

How it’s going -> how it started.

Happy Father’s Day to all!

thank you for making me a dad and giving me the greatest gift of a lifetime 🥹.

That’s right, pickle juice, bananas, liquid IV…probably not going to help you out with the cramp in the bottom of your foot when you try and lift your big toe off the ground while keeping the rest of the little piggies down.

So why should you “lean into” a cramp?

When I communicate muscle facilitation (increase activation) or inhibition (decrease activation) to clients, I can’t help but use the analogy of a volume k**b. Each muscle has its own volume k**b, 0-10, (unless you’re in a rock band, then it may go up to 11…). Paralysis is an example of a muscle being at 0. Spasticity is an example of it being at/close to 10.

I think another form of a muscle being close to 10 is a cramp, but the real issue with a cramp from a lack of motor control is that the k**b doesn’t have well-defined gauges of 2-9, not that 10 is actually bad.

So, for the given task, asking the muscle to do slightly more than its capability actually facilitates it up to 9, 9.9, 9.999….very close to 10, because calculus….

Now, when most people encounter this, they think that it’s something to avoid. Why? Because cramps are f***ing uncomfortable! Can’t blame ‘em.

However, what if instead of continuing to be frustrated by the fact that your muscle lacks control of a task, set it up in an environment where you can find 5 on the volume k**b, now you have 1, 5, and 10. Then you can work on finding a number between 1-5 and 5-10, and so on and so forth, until you have a smoothly twisting volume know with at least the 10 (or 11 🎸) gauges on it.

If you don’t use it, you lose it.

I truly believe to maintain brain sharpness/wit as we age doing puzzles, staying social, reading are all paramount.

Well, I also think that you can maintain sharpness of movement, and that sharpness is speed and power.

Do your plyometrics, med ball throws, skipping, and sprinting drills now, and keep doing them, so your movement ability stays sharp forever.

Went to the cash-based coffee shop this morning. Probably going to hit up the cash-based bodega later. Then might hit up a restaurant for some cash-based dinner.

Why should it be any different in healthcare?

Just like my morning coffee the quality of the product or service will dictate the market value.

Feel free to Venmo me if you thought this was of value 😜.

Just thinking about things differently lately.

“Improving mobility?” You’re just trying to improve the capability of a series of bones to move closer together.

That still just sounds like a motor control issue.

I’ve already mostly been out on passive stretching, but now I wonder about joint mobilization. How much more value is there in practitioners “moving bones,” as opposed to showing someone how to move their own bones with their own muscles?

Should myofascial stretching really be called stretching? Maybe it’s a high tension motor control isometric, or something like that?

A lot of this probably sounds like semantics, but semantics are a big part of communication, research, and moving things forward.

Never did I think “double meat” would be so prevalent in my vocabulary…

That’s what…. Never mind.

But seriously, while it might take a little going against the grain (no pun intended), eating a gram of protein per pound of body weight each day, and staying within your macros is extremely doable if you’re willing.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s a time and a place for planks, dead bugs, bird dogs, dog bugs, bug birds, you get the point…

But how are we even deciding that people with “bad backs” need these exercises?

What other joint of the body do people go to the doctor for or come to physical therapy for and get the advice, “yeah keep holding it the way you’re holding it, but much harder?”

None, none other body parts.

Just like every other joint, the back needs degrees of freedom, control, and especially during specific tasks, so let’s approach it like that.