Training out a crossover gait?

This gal came to see us with right-sided hamstring insertional pain. During gait analysis we noted that she has a crossover gait as seen in the first two sections of this video. In addition to making other changes both biomechanically (manipulation, gluteus medius exercises) and in her running style (“Rounding out her gait” and making her gait more “circular”, running with less impact on foot strike, extending her toes slightly in her shoes) she was told to run with her arms at her sides rather than across her body. You can see the results and the third part of this.

Because of her bilateral gluteus medius weakness that is seen with the dipping and lateral shift of the pelvis on the footstrike side, she moves her arms across her body to move her center of gravity over her feet.

Yes, there is much more work that needs to be done. This is one simple step in the entire process.

A nice, referenced review on a often hotly debated topic. 

“Can you emphasize vastus medialis activation in squats?Reading time:By Chris Beardsley, S&C Research columnistSome strength coaches have suggested that squats with either a narrow stance or with elevated heels can preferentially increase vastus medialis activation. They argue that training the vastus medialis is essential, because they believe it is more important than the other quadriceps at the bottom of the squat.But can we actually emphasize vastus medialis activation in the squat by changing stance width or adding a heel lift?And if we can, is the vastus medialis really more important at the bottom of the squat than the other quadriceps, anyway? Let’s take a look!”

link to full text: http://www.strengthandconditioningresearch.com/perspectives/vastus-medialis-squats/

Arm and leg swing gait quiz. Today I combine concepts from my previous quizes ! This one may really put you to the test. 

Two women walking on a sloped beach. They are arm in arm.

Take the principles I have taught you on slope walking, functional leg length differentials to level the pelvis, and arm swing to answer the question.

Here is the question: Are these two more likely to walk “in phase or out of phase”? 

* Do not mistaken the question for anti-phasic or phasic. These are two different concepts. If you are out of the loop on these 4 terms, just search the blog for them. Then come back here to answer this brain thumper.

Make for your case in your head and then scroll down to hear my reasoning for my answer.

This is an EXTREMELY difficult mind bender of a question. You will need to understand the concepts of 2 prior blog posts to even get to the starting line of the solution.  These are the questions I will often pose to myself so that I force the mental gymnastics of gait biomechanics, and quicken my “gait mind” so that I can leave room for processing unique factors in someone’s individual gait. If you have to take time to process the basics, you are gonna run out of time during a consultation and your client will notice you scratching your head. This is a maturation process, you must put in the work that Ivo and I have, if you want to solve the really tough cases. Simple cases are a break, a vacation if you will, they are welcome during a clinic day, but it is the tough cases that make you stretch that truly fulfill your day.  When you are in the clinic, you have to think fast, efficiently and effectively. Recently I had a powerlifter drive from out of state to see me. His case problems were unresolved for many years.  The treating clinician was on the right page, doing a great job actually, but there were so many issues going on that it was hard to see the root of the problem so the case was just being more “managed” than solved. His case was much like this one, all of the findings and factors were related but because I had seen this hodge podge of complaints before (right foot, right knee, left hip, low back, pelvis distortion and a classic Olympic lift compensation fail) so I knew quickly how to piece it all together into a logical solution and find the single spot to focus the therapy, at the root of the problem. My point is that I had done the hard “head scratching” work long ago, so I readily was able to dismiss the distractors and recognize this beast for what it was.  

Back to the two ladies beach walking, I am basing things on a simple assumption that on most beaches the slope gently levels out at the water line, and that the sand several feet up the beach from the water is on a steeper incline, simple tide erosion principles.  Thus, the woman higher up on the beach will be on a steeper slope, this means more beach side leg knee flexion which means less hip extension, meaning a shorter right step length.  This will impair left arm swing, likely shortening it. Less right hip extension will be met by less left arm extension (posterior arm swing behind the body). This often leads to left arm cross over, arm adduction. 

Here is where things get squirrelly. The lady lower on the beach is on a slightly more gentle slope but her issues are the same just muted slightly. So her right beach side leg is in less flexion at the knee and hip, so hip extension is greater and step length will be longer (relative to her friend higher up on the beach). However, she (ocean side lady) is being led by the impaired arm swing, as discussed above, of the lady on the beach side.  That is, if in fact she is being led or if she is the leader. Oy ! There is the brain bender !  

One must consider who is the more corrupting force. In this case, the more corrupting forces will likely trump out the cleaner forces. The ocean side lady is clearly going to have a “more normal” gait with more normal arm and leg swing and step lengths, quite simply the slope she must negotiate is less so there is less corrupting forces on her. The lady on the beach side is having to accomodate more to her greater slope. The lady up the beach is working harder to keep her pelvis level, her eyes and vestiular apparati on the horizon, her differing step lengths from pulling her off from a straight line course, to keep her from falling over (the steeper the slope, the greater the balance challenge to fight from falling into the beach or falling down the slope. Laws of physics say that things roll down hill, so she is fighting this battle while trying to walk a straight line down a sloped beach, with a friends arm in tow).

So, with all that said, one could logically assume that the gal up the beach is definitely working harder, she has greater differing arm and leg swings from side to side, different step lengths, greater struggles with staying up on the slope when gravity wants her to move down the slope, she has more left arm flexion and adduction to help pair with the struggling and perpetual right hip flexion (and loss of right hip extension), she will have to demonstrate more spinal stiffness to deal with these limb girdle torsional differences side to side and a host of other issues I have outlined in these prior “beach walking” quiz posts. Clearly beach side lady is working harder. Thus, just to maintain her gait posturing up on the slope, she will have to dominate the gait. If she gives in to the signals of her ocean side gal, she will have to soften her slope work strategies and she will move down the slope to easier ground. 

Now, back to the question: Are these two more likely to walk “in phase or out of phase”? 

Who truly knows is the answer ! However, we know beach lady is working harder and must continue to do so to stay up on the slope, so her left arm will remain dominant and the ocean side gal will have to accommodate to a very jerky yet cyclically synchronous gait. To walk linked together they will have to find some rhythm. Walking slower will be easier for them to find a harmoniously rhythm. However, one could make the case that “out of phase” gait will be easier (mental image to help you, if they tie ocean side lady’s right ankle to beach side ladies left ankle you will create “out of phase” gait. Thus, the ocean side lady will not mirror her beach side friend. Thus, when beach lady has right leg in extension, ocean side lady will have her left leg in extension. Why? Well, the left arm swing , their point of union, is the trouble zone. With beach side lady having the left arm in more flexion and adduction, the ocean side lady has to accommodate and meet that troubling arm swing. This means her right leg will be in extension at the same time beach side lady has her left leg in extension. This will be more accommodative work for ocean side lady, but she will just have to go with it. Failure to do so will pull her friend down off the beach and making life harder for her friend.

So there you have it. The person up the slope is working harder to stay here, the person down the slope is working harder to accommodate to a gait that their  lower slope is not requiring. Thus, they are both working hard, but for different reasons. But the winner, the dictator, is the one with the greater slope risk. And thus, she will dictate an “out of phase” gait of her ocean side partner, if they are to still walk embraced. 

How did you do ? Can you make a case for “in phase” as the solution ? I can, but I think that “out of phase” is more likely, for the above reasons.

Thanks for playing  this tough one. Congratulations to you if you followed things smoothly. IF you did not, go back and play the mental game again, I think these are important fundamentals everyone should have if you are doing gait work.

Dr. Shawn Allen

How Brooks Plans to Reinvent the Stride Analysis Test→

Another gimmick to sell shoes ? Likely. What do we always say … .  “what you see in someone’s gait and movement is their compensation, not their problem”. Looking at how someone moves does not necessarily tell you what is wrong with them, and it surely isn’t likely to tell them what shoe they should be in. If it were this simple, no one would ever return a pair of shoes because shoe fit would be simple, perfect, repeatable and predictable. Trust us, comparing to a baseline knee-bend is like using an Abacus to solve a math question when we have much better ways…….. it is called a physical exam, watching someone walk and run, screening movement patterns, and bringing it all together. But, this is why we don’t sell shoes for a living. We would only sell a pair an hour.  But, we would get it right almost every time.

 “Before they do any running, customers perform a knee-bend to mimic the angle the joint will make during a run (roughly 40 degrees). This is to establish a baseline movement before the additional stress of running is placed on the joint. Customers then run on a soft-surface treadmill in their socks. Rather than just considering pronation (i.e. rear foot eversion/rotation) tendencies, Run Signature takes both knee and ankle motions into account and, crucially, analyzes the degree to which a customer’s running motion deviates from their baseline knee-bend. Runners with little or no deviation are recommended neutral-style running shoes, while those with greater deviation are steered towards support models. “

Leg Pain? Are you SURE its a disc?

Gluteus minimus dysfunction is often present in gait disorders, including stance phase mechanical problems, since it fires from initial contact through pre swing, like it better known counterpart, the gluteus medius. It is interesting that the trigger point referral pattern of the gluteus minimus has a sciatic distribution, whereas the gluteus medius is more in the local area of the hip. 

 There are several, well known effects of dry needling:

decreased central sensitization

increased range of motion

changes in muscle activation

changes in the chemical environment surrounding a trigger point

changes in local and referred pain

and now we can add (not surprisingly), changes in autonomic function. The mechanism probably has something to do with pain and the reticular formation sending information down the cord via the lateral cell column (intermediolateral cell nucleus) or pain (nociceptive) afferents sending a collateral in the spinal cord to the dysfunctional muscle (Dr Ivo talks about these mechanisms in his dry needling and acupuncture lectures). 

Conclusions

The presence of active TrPs within the gluteus minimus muscle among subacute sciatica subjects was confirmed. Every TrPs-positive sciatica patient presented DN related vasodilatation in the area of referred pain. The presence of vasodilatation suggests the involvement of sympathetic nerve activity in myofascial pain pathomechanism.

BMC Complement Altern Med. 2015; 15: 72. Published online 2015 Mar 20. doi:  10.1186/s12906-015-0587-6PMCID: PMC4426539 Intensive vasodilatation in the sciatic pain area after dry needling

link to full text: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4426539/

What’s wrong with this picture? (Besides the fact that you probably shouldn’t run with your dog on asphalt) 

There’s been a lot of incongruency in the media as of late. This particular gal, with your head rotation to the right is going against the harmony of neurology and physiology. Let me explain…

 This particular gal, with her rotated to the right is going against the way the nervous system is designed to work.

In a post  in the last week or so (the massage cream one and  incongruent movement) we talked about tonic neck responses. When the head is rotated to one side, that upper and lower extremity should extend while the contralateral side should flex. This poor gal is fighting her own neurology! 

 Also note that she really doesn’t have that much hip extension on the right and increases her lumbar lordosis to compensate. Gee whizz. You’d a thought they would have done better…

 So much for the photo op : -) 

“When you run up a hill, most of the cross over gait disappears. Runners will tend toward beautifully stacked lower limb joints.”- Dr. Allen

Are people running up a hill more likely to tend towards a cross over gait style, in other words tend toward a more narrow gait step or a wider gait step ?

Watch people run up hill closely. Even if they are cross over (narrow foot fall) runners, when running up hills a few things will negate much of the narrow foot fall.

1- Running up hill requires more gluteals, more power is needed for all that extra required hip extension to power up the hill. More gluteal max use can, and will, spill over into the posterior fibers of the gluteus medius and this will tend to abduct the leg/hip and reduce some of the cross over tendency.

2- When one runs up a hill, there is a forward pitch of the upper torso, often with a some degree of forward pitch occurring at the hips. More importantly, because one is running up hill, they are stepping up and so more than normal hip flexion is necessary than in normal running. The forward pitch of the body and the greater degree of hip flexion is the culprit here. If the hip/leg is adducted in a cross over style, adding this to a more than normal flexing hip, it will create a scenario for anterior hip impingement and risk of femoral acetabular impingement (FAI) syndromes. Go ahead, test it for yourself. Lie on your back and flex your hip, drawing your knee straight up towards your shoulder.  Pretty good range correct ?  Now, flex the hip drawing your knee towards your navel, adducting it a little across your body. Feel the abrupt range of motion loss and possible pinch in the front of the hip ?  FAI.  This is what would happen if you utilized a cross over gait, narrow foot strike gait. The goes for mountain/sleep hill hikers as well. 

This is why, if you are a narrow foot striker, a near-cross over type of runner, you will see it disappear when you run up hills.  

If you get anterior hip pain running up hills, force a wider step width and reduce the possible impingement at the anterior hip joint. Just make sure you have enough ankle dorsiflexion to tackle the hill in the first place. If not, you may welcome some foot and ankle stuff to the table along with the hip.  

Likely obvious stuff to most of the readers here, but sometimes it is nice to point out the obvious.  Hills, just because they are there, doesn’t mean you have the parts to run them safely.

Dr. Shawn Allen

 Every foot has a story. 

 This is not your typical “in this person has internal tibial torsion, yada yada yada” post.  This post poses a question and the question is “Why does this gentleman have a forefoot adductus?”

The first two pictures show me fully internally rotating the patients left leg. You will note that he does not go past zero degrees and he has femoral retroversion. He also has bilateral internal tibial torsion, which is visible in most of the pictures. The next two pictures show me fully internally rotating his right leg, with limited motion, as well and internal tibial torsion, which is worse on this ® side

 The large middle picture shows him rest. Note the bilateral external rotation of the legs. This is most likely to create some internal rotation, because thatis a position of comfort for him (ie he is creating some “relief” and internal rotation, by externally rotating the lower extremity)

 The next three pictures show his anatomically short left leg. Yes there is a large tibial and small femoral component. 

 The final picture (from above) shows his forefoot adductus. Note that how, if you were to bisect the calcaneus and draw a line coming forward, the toes fall medial to a line that would normally be between the second and third metatarsal’s. This is more evident on the right side.  Note the separation of the big toe from the others, right side greater than left. 

Metatarsus adductus deformity is a forefoot which is adducted in the transverse plane with the apex of the deformity at LisFranc’s (tarso-metatarsal) joint. The fifth metatarsal base will be prominent and the lateral border of the foot convex in shape . The medial foot border is concave with a deep vertical skin crease located at the first metatarso cuneiform joint level. The hallux (great toe) may be widely separated from the second digit and the lesser digits will usually be adducted at their bases. ln some cases the abductor hallucis tendon may be palpably taut just proximal to its insertion into the inferomedial aspect of the proximal phalanx (1)

Gait abnormalities seen with this deformity include a decreased progression angle, in toed gait, excessive supination of the feet with low gear push off from the lesser metatarsals. 

 It is interesting to note that along with forefoot adductus, hip dysplasia and internal tibial torsion are common (2) and this patient has some degree of both. 

 His forefoot adductus is developmental and due to the lack of range of motion and lack of internal rotation of the lower extremities, due to the femoral retrotorsion and internal tibial torsion.  If he didn’t adduct the foot he would have to change weight-bearing over his stance phase extremity to propel himself forward. Try internally rotating your foot and standing on one leg and then externally rotating. See what I mean? With the internal rotation it moves your center of gravity over your hip without nearly as much lateral displacement as would be necessary as with external rotation. Try it again with external rotation of the foot; do you see how you are more likely displace the hip further to that side OR lean to that side rather than shift your hip? So, his adductus is out of necessity.

Interesting case! When you have a person with internal torsion and limited hip internal rotation, with an adducted foot, think of forefoot adductus!

1.  Bleck E: Metatarsus adductus: classification and relationship to outcomes of treatment. J Pediatric Orthop 3:2-9,1983.

2. Jacobs J: Metatarsus varus and hip dysplasia. C/inO rth o p 16:203-212, 1960

One way to correct an dysfunctional Extensor Hallucis Brevis

The Extensor Hallicus Brevis, or EHB  (beautifully pictured above causing the  extension (dorsiflexion) of the proximal big to is an important muscle for descending the distal aspect of the 1st ray complex (1st metatarsal and medial cunieform) as well as extending the 1st metatarsophalangeal joint.

Since this muscle is frequently dysfunctional, and is one of THE muscles than can lower the head of the 1st metatarsal, along with the peroneus longus and most likely the tibialis posterior (through its attachment to the 1st or medial cunieform), needling can often assist in normalizing function and works especially well, when coupled with an appropriate rehab program. Here is one way to needle it effectively. 

Podcast 106: Understanding Tendonopathies & Asymmetrical Bone density in athletes.

* Plus the global effects of Hallux Limitus, & Chronic exposure to routine high-impact, gravitational loads afforded to the support limb preferentially improved bone mass and structure

Show Sponsors:

newbalancechicago.com
Altrarunning.com

Other Gait Guys stuff

2 Podcast links: 

http://traffic.libsyn.com/thegaitguys/pod_106f.mp3

http://thegaitguys.libsyn.com/episode-106

B. iTunes link:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-gait-guys-podcast/id559864138

C. Gait Guys online /download store (National Shoe Fit Certification & more !)
http://store.payloadz.com/results/results.aspx?m=80204

D. other web based Gait Guys lectures:
Monthly lectures at : www.onlinece.com type in Dr. Waerlop or Dr. Allen, ”Biomechanics”

-Our Book: Pedographs and Gait Analysis and Clinical Case Studies
Electronic copies available here:

-Amazon/Kindle:
http://www.amazon.com/Pedographs-Gait-Analysis-Clinical-Studies-ebook/dp/B00AC18M3E

-Barnes and Noble / Nook Reader:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/pedographs-and-gait-analysis-ivo-waerlop-and-shawn-allen/1112754833?ean=9781466953895

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/pedographs-and-gait-analysis/id554516085?mt=11

-Hardcopy available from our publisher:
http://bookstore.trafford.com/Products/SKU-000155825/Pedographs-and-Gait-Analysis.aspx

________________________

Show Notes:

New device to get people with paralysis back on their feet
Scientists have tested the world’s first minimally-invasive brain-machine interface, designed to control an exoskeleton with the power of thought
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/02/160208124241.htm

Splicing out torsions, and aberrant foo types ? Club foot ? etc
http://gizmodo.com/everything-you-need-to-know-about-crispr-the-new-tool-1702114381

Scientists Capture Crispr’s Gene-Cutting in Action
http://www.wired.com/2016/01/crispr-modification/

The UK Just Green-Lit Crispr Gene Editing in Human Embryos
http://www.wired.com/2016/02/the-uk-just-green-lit-crispr-gene-editing-in-human-embryos/

Asymmetries in limbs
http://journals.lww.com/acsm-msse/Abstract/publishahead/Musculoskeletal_Asymmetry_in_Football_Athletes___A.97584.aspx

Tension or compression ?
link to full text: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3676165/

Concept: the forces have to go somewhere, it is a “passing the buck” system.  
We did this blog post here to explain:
http://thegaitguys.tumblr.com/post/138680011664/the-banana-toe-the-force-has-to-go-somewhere

The new muscle discovery !
http://www.rmtedu.com/blog/tensor-vastus-intermedius
http://www.rmtedu.com/blog/tensor-vastus-intermedius
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26732825

tendinopathy vasculature: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4650849/

tendinopathy treatment paper: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2505250/

Knee hyperextension and delayed heel rise in an interesting sport, Racewalking.

If you have been in practice long enough, you should know by now that in order to truly help an athlete you have to know their sport, the subtleties and the specifics.  You have heard us talk about premature heel rise off an on for years. Today, you must consider the opposite, delayed heel rise and the bizarre loading responses that come into the kinetic chains from such a behavior.

Racewalking is a long-distance event requiring one foot to be in contact with the ground at all times. Stride length is thus reduced and so to achieve competitive speeds racewalkers must attain cadence rates comparable to those achieved by Olympic 800-meter runners for hours at a time. Most people cannot truly appreciate how fast these folks are going.

There are really only two rules that govern racewalking:

1-The first rules states that the athlete’s trailing foot’s toe cannot leave the ground until the heel of the leading foot has created contact. 

2-The second rule specifies that the supporting leg must straighten, essentially meaning knee extension (and for some, terminal extension, ie. negative 5-10 degrees !) from the point of contact with the ground and remain straightened until the body passes directly over it. Again, essentially meaning full range knee extension for the entire stance phase of gait (early, mid and late midstance phases). 

Delated heel rise ?

Clearly some folks are going to take knee extension a little more literally. Look at the fella in the red and yellow. Can you say knee HYPER extension ? This is right knee anteriormeniscofemoral impingement looming on the horizon, this is an anterior compression overload phenomenon via the quadriceps. This is often met in this sport with the delayed heel rise that the sport seems to often drive. Prolonging the foot ground contact phase, attempting to abide by Rule#2, “the support  leg must straighten”, can lead to knee hyperextension if one is not careful. This will put a longer stretch load into the achilles and posterior compartment mechanism and this prolonged stretch-contract load can eventually lead to local pathology let alone in combination with the anterior knee compression we just eluded to. These folks will also be at risk for more anterior pelvic tilt, distraction of the anterior hip capsule-labral interval, unique hip extension and gluteal integration, and even possibly altered hip extension motor patterning driving abnormal loads into the hamstrings and low back.  Just imagine the changes in the hip flexor strategies in this scenario. 

To help your athletes, know their sport, know your normal biomechanics and know the pathologies when the rules of clean biomechanics are broken.

Today, on Rewind Friday, we will repost a more in-depth, with video, piece we did a few years ago on Race Walking. You may learn more about normal and abnormal gait than you think, today we translate some of the rules of the sport of race walking into deeper thoughts on gait mechanics.

Here is the link to our more in-depth video assessment and dialogue on the fascinating sport of race walking. If you have never truly looked at this sport before, you should enjoy this Rewind Post. (link).

- Dr. Shawn Allen

Not sure we agree this is the best direction. Imaging how much shoulder stability will be necessary. As least with the Axillary/rib cage crutch placement people can splint their arms and torso into a more stable tripod. The load is shared between the arm-shoulder and the torso. The thorax is taken out of the equation with this new design and that means 100% of the stability must come from the scap-thoracic and glenohumeral intervals. And, most people will not have the endurance stability capacity in those joints either. Sure, it has some great design principles, but we do not things all the variables have been taken into account. We see more shoulder problems coming out of this kind of crutch design. We feel pretty strongly about this. What do you guys think ?

Got Graft? Got ACL? Rehabbing one? This will give you some excellent insight.

An excellent read for folks wanting to know more about ACL grafts and outcomes.

Bottom line:
allografts (your own tissue) seem to fare better than autografts (cadaver tissue)

BPTB (bone patellar tendon bone) seem to have more longevity.

Read on here

Treat the paraspinals in addition to the peripheral muscle

As people who treat a wide variety of gait related disorders we often emphasize needling the paraspinal muscles associated with the segemental innervation of the peripheral muscle you are treating. For example, you may facilitate or needle the L2-L4 paraspinals (ie: femoral nerve distribution) along with the quads, or perhaps the C5-C6 PPD’s along with the shoulder muscles for the deltiods or rotator cuff for arm swiing. We do this to get more temporal and spacial summation at a spinal cord level, to hopefully get better clinical results.

White and Panjabi described clinical instability as the loss of the ability of the spine, under physiologic loads, to maintain relationships between vertebrae in such a way that there is neither damage nor subsequent irritation to the spinal cord or nerve roots, and, in addition there is no development of incapacitating deformity or pain due to structural changes.

Increased movement between vertebrae (antero or retrolisthesis) of > 3.5 mm (or 25% of the saggital body diameter) during flexion and/or extension suggests clinical instability. This often leads to intersegmental dysfunction and subsequent neurological sequelae which could be explained through the following mechanisms:

Recall that the spinal nerve, formed from the union of the ventral (motor) and dorsal (sensory) rami, when exiting the IVF splits into an anterior and posterior division, supplying the structures anterior and posterior to the IVF respectively. The posterior division has 3 branches: a lateral branch that supplies the axial muscles such as the iliocostalis and quadratus; an intermediate branch, which innervates the medial muscles, such as the longissimus, spinalis and semispinalis; and a medial branch, which innervates the segmental muscles, (multifidus and rotatores) as well as the joint capsule. Inappropriate intersegmental motion has 2 probable neurological sequelae: I) alteration of afferentation from that level having segmental (reflexogenic muscle spasm or vasoconstrictive/vasodilatory changes from excitation of primary afferents and gamma motoneurons) and suprasegmental (less cerebellar afferentation, less cortical stimulation) effects and II) compression or traction of the medial branch of the PPD, causing,  over time, demyelination and resultant denervation, of the intrinsic muscles, resulting in impaired motor control both segmentally and suprasegmentally. The segmental effects are directly measurable with needle EMG. This is a form of paraspinal mapping, which has also been explored by Haig et al. So, in short, instability can lead to denervation and denervation can lead to instability.

We often see clinically that treating a trigger point (needling, dry needling, acupuncture, manual pressure) can alter the function of the associated muscle . Improvements in muscle strength and changes in proprioception are not uncommon. Needling also seems to increase fibroblastic activty through the local inflammation it causes. Wouldn’t better muscle function and some scar tissue be a beneficial thing to someone with instability?

The next time you have a patient with instability, make sure to include the paraspinals in your quest for better outcomes.

and what have we been saying?

Gait problems leave clues. Asymmetry is a BIG clue

“Asymmetrical lower extremity neuromuscular control is predictive of repetitive stress injury in recreational runners, according to findings presented at the Combined Sections Meeting of the American Physical Therapy Association in February in Anaheim.”

http://lermagazine.com/issues/march/years-after-achilles-tear-injured-limb-demonstrates-elevated-knee-loading

Do you have enough in the anterior tank ? Dr. Allen’s quiz question and lesson of the week.

One of my favorite sayings to my clients, “Do you have enough anterior strength to achieve and maintain posterior length?”  

Translation, do you have enough anterior lower leg compartment strength (tibialis anterior, long toe extensor muscle group, peroneus tertius) to achieve sufficient ankle dorsiflexion in order to achieve posterior compartment length (gastric, soleus, tibialis posterior, long toe flexor muscle) ?  You see, you can either regularly stretch the calf-achilles complex or you can achieve great anterior compartment strength, to drive sufficient ankle dorsiflexion, in effect EARNING the posterior compartment length. This is a grounded principle in our offices. It is the premise of the Shuffle Walk exercise (link) and many others we implement in restoring someones biomechanics.

Now on to today’s quiz question.

In this photo, both people are just mere moments before heel strike. 

1. Who is gonna need to have more eccentric strength in the anterior compartment ? And what if they don’t have it ? Repercussions ?  

2. Who is toeing off the lateral forefoot ? 

3. Who is crossing over more and thus could have more gluteus medius weakness ?

A picture is worth a thousand words. Answers and dialogue below.

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1. The lady in the high heeled shoes. If she heel strikes first, the larger longer heel on her shoe will mean she will need more of a prolonged eccentric loading of the anterior compartment to lower the forefoot to the ground. I hope she shortens her strike so she can get close to mid foot strike, it will negate most of this issue.  Repercussions? Forefoot pain, clenching/hammering of her toes from use of the long flexors to dampen loading of the metatarsal heads, and even possibly anterior shin splint like pain.

2. The lady is clearly in more lateral toe off, this is from the intoe’ing we see. This is low gear toe off. She may have limb torsion, internal tibial torsion to be specific, or insufficent external hip rotation control as a possibility. There are several possibilities here.

3. Hard to say, but the man seems to be crossing over more.

There is also no arm swing, hands are in the pockets, this is a big hit to gait economy. We have discussed these numbers in previous blog posts, the numbers are significant and real.  Step width is also a real factor, reduced step width leads to joint stacking challenges and is found with weaker hip abductors and changes in the iliotibial band length.

A picture can be worth a thousand words. I am a few short of the mark today, but I wanted to keep it short.

Dr. Shawn Allen, one of the gait guys

… an industry wide concern if you ask us, and the problem with looking to solve your problem on the internet. When was the last time you went on youtube to look for your magic pill exercise ?
Come read Dr. Allen’s blog post today and take his Case Quiz question of the week ! Come knock your brain around a bit.

Post/Quiz link: http://thegaitguys.tumblr.com/post/142737112319/is-your-client-feeling-better-because-they-are