Working With Athletes

I have had the honor and privilege over the past ten years to work with many amateur, colligate, and professional athletes. The thing I enjoy most about working with athletes is their respect of their body. Athletes of any level want to excel, they want to perform at a higher level than they do. This makes the athletic client so appealing due to the fact that they will work hard for these results. In general athletes are accustom to moving around on the table, performing contractions, and having their bodies moved into positions that challenge dysfunctional ranges of motion.

I have recently had many great results using protocols to balance pelvic position. Many of our clients present with imbalances within these three bones. We seem to see many athletes with these conditions due to muscle imbalance during repetitive motions of sport, pulling bones out of alignment.

The pelvis is made up of two hips and one sacrum. Here we have three joints that can develop problematic movement patterns: the two sacroiliac joints and one symphysis pubis. Here we also have numerous ligaments that can be very important pain generators. The ligaments I am most concerned with are Iliolumbar, dorsal sacroiliac, sacrotuberous, and the sacrococcygeal ligaments. When the three bones listed above are out of balance they will undoubtedly tug on these soft tissues and cause discomfort, and some times great pain. Low back pain, gluteal pain, and leg pain are just the beginning. These pains can translate into the mid and upper back, shoulder, neck, and to the knee, ankle and foot.

Through the use of specific body positions and gentle stretching and limited contractions we can, as soft tissue therapists, begin to realign some of the osseous tissues in the pelvis, thus helping the client to regain balance and release muscle strain.

In up coming entries I will look at these mechanisms more closely, and we can discuss correction. And if no one reads this, I still have the chance to practice my writing.

Oh Boys

A friend sent me this some time ago...

The government recently calculated the cost of raising a child from birth to 18 and came up with $160,140.00 for a middle income family.
Talk about price shock, that doesn't even touch college tuition.
But $160,140.00 isn't so bad if you break it down. It translates into:

* $8,896.66 a year,
* $741.38 a month, or
* $171.08 a week.
* That's a mere $24.24 a day!
* Just over a dollar an hour.

Still, you might think the best financial advice is don't have children if you want to be "rich." Actually, it is just the opposite.

What do you get for your $160,140.00?

* Naming rights. First, middle, and last!
* Glimpses of God every day.
* Giggles under the covers every night.
* More love than your heart can hold.
* Butterfly kisses and Velcro hugs.
* Endless wonder over rocks, ants, clouds, and warm cookies.
* A hand to hold, usually covered with jelly or chocolate.
* A partner for blowing bubbles and flying kites.
* Someone to laugh yourself silly with, no matter what the boss said or how your stocks performed that day.

For $160,140.00, you never have to grow up. You get to:

* finger-paint,
* carve pumpkins,
* play hide-and-seek,
* catch lightning bugs, and
* never stop believing in Santa Claus.

You have an excuse to:

* keep reading the Adventures of Piglet and Pooh,
* watch Saturday morning cartoons,
* go to Disney movies, and
* wish on stars.
* You get to frame rainbows, hearts, and flowers under refrigerator magnets and collect spray painted noodle wreaths for Christmas, hand prints set in clay for Mother's Day, and cards with backward letters for Father's Day.

For a mere $24.24 a day, there is no greater bang for your buck. You get to be a hero just for:

* retrieving a Frisbee off the garage roof,
* taking the training wheels off a bike,
* removing a splinter,
* filling a wading pool,
* coaxing a wad of gum out of bangs, and coaching a baseball team that never wins but always gets treated to ice cream.

You get a front row seat in history to witness the:
* first step,
* first word,
* first bra,
* first date, and
* first time behind the wheel.

You get to be immortal. You get another branch added to your family tree, and if you're lucky, a long list of limbs in your obituary called grandchildren
and great grandchildren. You get an education in psychology, nursing, criminal justice, communications, and human sexuality that no college can match.
In the eyes of a child, you rank right up there under God. You have all the power to heal a boo-boo, scare away the monsters under the bed, patch a broken
heart, police a slumber party, ground them forever, and love them without limits, so one day they will, like you, love without counting the cost. That is quite
a deal for the price!!!!!!!

Love & enjoy your children & grandchildren & great-grandchildren, there the best investment you'll ever make!!!!!!!

Our youngest child is 13 weeks old and is suffering a cold/bronchialitis. They tested for RSV a few days ago, a few days late in my opinion, and we find the results today. It's a hard thing to watch a little guy go through, but we do our best.

Another day and good times

They say " another day another dollar", well today started at 9am and ended at 7:30pm. T'was not an easy day,
9:00 am 1/2 ranch run rot cuff repair
10:00 ultra , H/A
12:00 USMC C/C Champs (Feb. 10)
1:00 BC, Duathlon, Hard worker
3:00-7:00 Triathlon Canada
Home- 3 great kids and my wife!!

Post Massage Headache

So here's the question. Do you believe a headache after a massage is caused by "toxins", or possibly by compression on the nerves and blood supply tho the brain? Which sounds more likely?