Across the Globe Massage Therapy

03/07/2024

Love how massage therapy helps everyone. :)

🚨What Can One Session Do for Your Horse?🚨

Whether your horse is a top-level athlete or an admired pasture resident, they can greatly benefit from equine massage.

Many issues relating to movement and behavioral issues can be the result of muscle tightness and pain within your horse.

This mare had a break from massage services for a period of time and I came back to majority of her previous muscles issues being present.
- Why? Just like in humans, when we are dealing with issues relating to pain or dysfunction we compensate. This mare has a clubbed hoof (front right), aside from muscular compensation she experiences no soundness issues. Through compensating for the hoof, she puts a lot more strain on her hind end leading to issues such as an ilium flare, hip hike/hip drop (seen in before image), and mild pelvic rotation.

After just 1 full-body session you wouldn’t even know she was struggling with those issues. She was moving amazing in turn-out and playing with her pasture mates with no limitations!

Do you have a horse that could benefit from equine massage? Send me a message, virtual consultations are ALWAYS FREE 🥳
Sessions available this week and ask me about current discounts!

03/05/2024

Fascinating study on how the placement of the jaw can affect the entire body, including how weight is distributed in the feet.

Temporomandibular disease (TMD) is a general term including a group of conditions that cause pain and dysfunction in the masticatory muscles, the temporomandibular joint (TMJ), and their related structures. The painful forms of these dysfunctions have ...

10/27/2023

Just attended a fascinating HawkGrips webinar on plantar fascitis and its mimickers. It was taught by an amazing instructor who specializes in working with athletes. She suggested these wonderful exercises to build up intrinsic foot muscles:

Foot doming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rS5ucOyfgSg
Toe swapping: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JmkspYnxAM

https://hawkgrips.com/pages/laura-ramus-pt-atc

10/04/2023

I just attended a Graston webinar that talked about the importance of 360 degree breathing. They shared this article with this fascinating picture of how the diaphragm, quadratus lumborum, and psoas are related.

07/14/2023

I love their posts about how everything in the body is connected. And I love this visual. It makes it easy to understand how an imbalance in the pelvis affects the rest of the body.

🔈 PELVIS TENSEGRITY
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The pelvis is the centre of gravity and the largest bony complex in the human body.
The pelvis and sacrum are linked via strong ligaments and muscles, creating a tension system that works with the compression-bearing bones to create a local tensegrity system.
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These ligaments are visualized in the picture, they include the posterior SI ligaments (Iliotransversosacral, Axile, Zaglas, Bichat), anterior SI ligaments, the iliolumbar ligaments and the sacrotuberous and sacrospinous ligaments.
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Locally, these ligaments need to have balanced tension to maintain SI joint integrity and normal bone positions in space.

If one of these ligaments is injured and loses its optimal tension/quality, disruption of the tensegrity balance ensues.
This leads to increased compression stress in the pelvis/SI and hip joints, but also leads to distortion of the global tensegrity of the body.
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For example, in the picture we can see a normal, balanced pelvis icosahedron on the left with the horizontal balance beams through L4 and the greater trochanter did the

On the right, we can see the consequence of an injury to the right SI joint/ligament complex. This leads to pelvic and sacral shifting, unleveling of L3 (blue dot) and functional scoliosis, anterior-inferior shift of the left ilium, valgus stress in the left knee, and pronation stress in the left foot-ankle.

The white arrow represents the downward compressive force of gravity. If the tensegrity is balanced, the body can adequately resist gravity without breakdown.
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Disruption of this tensegrity system is the source of joint degeneration and pain, all results of decreased space/compression in the joints.
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This is but one example of how loss of connective tissue tension/quality leads to compression stresses as well as local and global distortions of the tensegrity system.
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In biotensegrity, micro affects macro, local affects global!

Credit: Stefanduell

07/12/2023

I just watched a fascinating Graston webinar on running analysis. The instructor is a Physical Therapist and analyzed a patient's walking and running gait in slow motion from the front, side, and back. It was amazing how clearly that revealed imbalances and lack of symmetry. They used Graston - Instrument Assisted Tissue Mobilization - to improve her ankle range of motion (it was limited on one side). And they encourage her to do Chris Johnson's running drills.

Marching drills are a staple in my work with runners & triathletes across the injury to performance spectrum. Here are 7 of my favorite marching variations.

07/11/2023

It's fascinating how dysfunction in one area can cause intense symptoms in completely different areas.

While piriformis syndrome doesn’t always present exactly the same way, common symptoms include pain in the buttocks that’s worse when sitting, especially with the legs crossed in a figure of four position. Maintaining that position for long periods can cause pain that radiates down one leg. Here are other possible symptoms. https://bit.ly/43TlXWd

06/27/2023

https://www.facebook.com/100064543697810/posts/639158821578902/?mibextid=CDWPTG

🔈THORACIC OUTLET SYNDROME

Thoracic outlet syndrome is a disorder characterized by pain and paresthesias in a hand, the neck, a shoulder, or an arm.
Pathogenesis often involves compression of the lower trunk of the brachial plexus (and perhaps the subclavian vessels) as these structures traverse the thoracic outlet below the scalene muscles and over the 1st rib, before they enter the axilla.

Compression may be caused by:
• A cervical rib
• An abnormal 1st thoracic rib
• Abnormal insertion or position of the scalene muscles
• A malunited clavicle fracture
• Thoracic outlet syndromes are more common among women and usually develop between age 35 and 55.

Symptoms and Signs of TOS
Pain and paresthesias usually begin in the neck or shoulder and extend to the medial aspect of the arm and hand and sometimes to the adjacent anterior chest wall. Many patients have mild to moderate sensory impairment in the C8 to T1 distribution on the painful side; a few have prominent vascular-autonomic changes in the hand (e.g., cyanosis, swelling). In even fewer, the entire affected hand is weak.

Rare complications of thoracic outlet compression syndromes include Raynaud syndrome localized to the affected arm and distal gangrene.

Exercise:
• Pectoralis stretch: Stand in a doorway or corner with both arms on the wall slightly above your head. Slowly lean forward until you feel a stretch in the front of your shoulders. Hold 15 to 30 seconds. Repeat 3 times.

• Thoracic extension: While sitting in a chair, clasp both arms behind your head. Gently arch backward and look up toward the ceiling. Repeat 10 times. Do this several times per day.

• Arm slide on wall: Sit or stand with your back against a wall and your elbows and wrists against the wall. Slowly slide your arms upward as high as you can while keeping your elbows and wrists against the wall. Do 3 sets of 10.

• Rowing exercise: Tie a piece of elastic tubing around an immovable object and grasp the ends in each hand. Keep your forearms vertical and your elbows at shoulder level and bent to 90 degrees. Pull backward on the band and squeeze your shoulder blades together. Repeat 10 times. Do 3 sets.

01/04/2023

Interesting explanation of what a "knot" is. :)

🔊 KNEE PAIN? IT CAN BE PATELLA MALTRACKING

Patella maltracking is one of the main causes of knee problems, so it’s important to understand why it occurs. If you have general knee problems, this brief guide will help clarify exactly what patella maltracking is and how it might be responsible for your pain. We will explain what the patella is, why it tracks incorrectly and the problems this can cause, as well as briefly touch on what can be done to relieve pain.

What is the patella?
The patella is what most people know as the kneecap. It is the point highlighted green in the picture. The movements of areas of the whole body can have an impact on the way the patella tracks over the knee, so the movement of the kneecap can point to different problems. In the immediate area around the knee, we are most concerned with the impact of these quadricep muscles.

What is patella maltracking?
Patella maltracking is an imbalance problem. The muscles in the upper thigh, the vastus medialis (inside) and vastus lateralis (outside) pull on the patella tendon in different directions. If one side is tighter than the other, it will pull the patella out of balance. Demonstrated with this simple diagram, the patella should ideally run smoothly down the middle of the groove between the condyles (the two sides) of the femur, at the end of your thigh bone.

In most cases of patella maltracking, the lateral (outer) quad is overactive and stronger than the medial (inner) quad, which is weak and underused. In these cases, the patella gets pulled out of the groove, to the side, and rubs against the femur, and this is what causes the pain you feel.

When the outer quad is especially tight, it can even pull the patella out of the joint and cause a dislocation. To tackle patella maltracking, therefore, you have to address the tightening of the muscle and the strength imbalance.

What causes the muscle tightness?
There are a number of reasons that the patella movement can become imbalanced, but muscle tightness is caused by an imbalance in strength or through muscles being overworked or used incorrectly. The muscle tightness stemming from improper muscle use comes from an evolutionary survival mechanism. When the muscle is overworked, there is a risk that it will tear and be damaged. In order to prevent this, the body sends impulses for the muscle to contract and avoid overstraining. This contraction forms a permanent knot in the muscle, which shortens the muscle. The shortened muscles then pulls tighter on the joint, causing it to feel stiff. The stiff feeling makes you want to avoid using the joint.

The corrective measures made by your body are well-intentioned, as they may prevent you from performing seriously harmful actions, but these warning signs leave lasting stiffness in the body. The muscle knots causing this stiffness can be removed manually. If you remove the knot, the muscle can be restored to its full length, preventing tightness and alleviating the pain. You can do this, simply, by massaging the knot. This breaks it down, switching off the nervous impulse and releasing the waste products caught in the knot. It also restores blood-flow to the muscle.

09/20/2022

Super excited about integrating warm/heated bamboo tools into my massage therapy treatments. The way that it allows me to do deep work while feeling soothing is very similar to hot stone massage therapy.