[QUOTE=Oso;913574]CJ: no, you didn’t treat me but you do seem to come with the correct as far as this stuff goes and your advice to me personally has always been solid.:)[/QUOTE]
thanks - glad to hear that it has been of use to you;
[QUOTE=Reverend Tap;913663]Heh. Cool. Thanks Oso, and thanks in advance TGY. :)[/QUOTE]
no sweat;
[QUOTE=Mr Punch;914132]My take, as a not Chris-type person (and this is solely to give Chris something to work from you understand, as in saying, “Whaaaat the F***?!” 
), but as someone who is receiving PT for torn neck muscles (not rotator cuff, but the PT is giving me some advice on how to prevent that too, esp as it’s my shoulders went through overcompensation for the neck)…
OK, rip em apart Chris! :D[/QUOTE]
TBH, I actually had a difficult time visualizing exactly what you were trying to describe - but my sense was that in concept they seemed like good things from a theoretical perspective; do you have any visual examples? I am curious to understand them in more detail, always open to new ideas;
[QUOTE=Mr Punch;914134]Chris, what the hell does taai gihk yahn mean, and why did you choose something so impossible to spell?!:mad:[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Oso;914141]dude, you know it means Tai Chi Chuan in some dialect or the other…or, Chris just made it up: Jurakanese![/QUOTE]
LOL - it’s the Yale system for Cantonese transliteration - the spelling is based on whether it’s a high, middle or low tone; it’s actually very logical and easy once you know it (unlike pinyin :mad:)
ok - RTC - this is the nutshell version, cause I’m running crazy today trying to get everything together for a ski trip with the fam;
most important thing to consider: the part of the RTC that usually gets injured are the external rotators of the shoulder joint (most common is supraspinatus, especially near the tendon; infraspin. can also take a beating, teres minor less so); why? first, to understand this motion hold your arms straight out to the side with your palms facing backwards, and then bend your elbows 90 so that your fingers are pointing down; from here, rotated your shoulders so that you end up with your palms facing forwards, fingers pointing straight up (as if you were opening a window); the motion you just did was concentric external rotation using supra/infra/teres min.; no big deal; now, if you do that motion in reverse (closing the window, or sort of like throwing a ball like a little girl - you guys should have no problem with that concept :D) you will be using those muscles eccentrically, meaning that they contract to resist elongation of their fibers;
in general, eccentric contractions are more stressful on the muscle fibers - basically what I believe are called “negatives” in weight training; the problem with RTC is made worse by two things 1) the ER’s are typically used eccentrically as decelerators; meaning that they work to control the movement of the arm during things like throwing a ball or to some extent punching (more so in the air, more so a hook than a straight arm, but that could vary); as such, they are dealing with significant torque forces but the lever arm is not always great, because the scapula often ends up being the point of support, as opposed to using the whole body (which I will explain why below); 2) the muscles that “oppose” ER’s are things like teres major, subscapularis, latissimus and pecs to some degree: these muscles are all flexors / shoulder internal rotators and by their intrinsic nature tend to be much stronger than ER’s, which are basically extensors, in a sense (flexors tend to have more tone than extensors in general in the body); furthermore, subscap. and lats in particular tend to be hyperfacilitated, subscap to the point of being a major “problem” muscle when it comes to neck, shoulder and back pain (I have had some patients who have had long-term significant pain where treating subscap alone has improved things by over 50% - it’s pretty cool to see that!); take-home message is that the muscles causing the acceleration forces that ER’s have to decelerate are intrinsicaly “stronger” to begin with; and also, even when “at rest” you have in many cases a postural imbalance where the resting position of the shoulder joint is keeping ER’s on some stretch, which will cause a relatively increased amount of inhibition compared to hyper-facilitated pecs, subscap, etc. - so ER’s can be “unphappy” even when not being used;
now, another big problem, in terms of scapular mechanics: if the scapula is “floating” off the spine, meaning not effectively harnessed to it (being attached only via soft tissue / muscle), the ability to get a good connection to the rest of the body decreases, so the mechanical advantage for ER’s is diminished; the primary muscle that makes the connection in terms of “anchoring” the scapula to the spine is the lower trapezius; “the what?” you ask? yeah, I know - the most overlooked muscle in the body, just about - everyone things traps are the ones on the top of the shoulders that make you look big and strong - well, these are upper traps; and honestly, I don’t know of a single person with weakness here - these are the ones that lift your shoulder straight up to your ears - and yet people trian them like no tomorrow when they in fact contribute significantly to muscle imbalance in terms of biomechanically effeicient posture, are always (almost) hyperfacilitated, are implicated in things like headaches, back pain, etc.;
so lower traps are in most people, inhibited (because they are opposed by upper traps, which are “on” all the time); meaning that, their roll of anchoring the bottom of the scapula to the spine is not happening nearly as efficiently as it could be; to engage lower traps, you basically try to pull the bottom of your shoulder blades down and in - like in the direction of an inverted triangle towards your butt; you may have a hard time doing this alone, because most people have significantly deceased kinesthetic awareness of these guys; another way to engage them is to lie on your stomach, put your arms out in front of you like Superman, and then try to lift them straight up in the air (together or one at a time); not as easy as you’d think…
ok, so, to wrap up - if LT’s are inhibited, then scapula will tip forwards more so, decreasing the lever arm of ER’s and not allowing for efficient transfer of forces from the feet through the kinetic chain up the spine to the shoulder; this will annoy RTC to no end;
solution for RTC dysfunction: defacilitate subscap / latissimus / upper traps / pecs (via GENTLE stretching, or more efficiently, with positional release or neuromuscular techniques administered on one’s own or by a good therapist); de-inhibit lower traps via isolated “strengthening” and functional postural re-ed; train improved boy mechanics for ER’s during deceleration type activities (plyo is the key here)
ok, that’s it for now, gotta run (I will take f/u questions, of course)
