Techniques

Graston is a non-invasive technique that uses specially designed stainless steel instruments to identify and treat areas exhibiting soft tissue fibrosis or chronic inflammation. The Graston Technique allows us to get as deep into the tissue as necessary to invoke change. The Graston Technique can be used through muscles, tendons, and ligaments, and in a wide variety of acute and chronic conditions. As the instruments are moved over the affected area and come in contact with the adhesions, they break up scar tissue. In time this will reduce or eliminate the adhered fibers, restoring motion and eliminating the pain associated with it. It will help rebuild your soft tissue injury into a healthy functioning tissue. 

When we temper we are working on not just stretching the muscle or even just increasing the blood flow but removing or alleviating soft tissue cumulative trauma disorders caused from continued inappropriate movements.  When we cause injury to soft tissue it responds in a reasonably consistent manner starting with inflammation and ending with differentiated muscle tissue that feels leathery and lacks strength of normal tissue.  This tight and weak tissue causes us to use more force than necessary leading to more injury. But even more body tempering is a way to get into your own head, it’s also a form of neurological treatment to the muscle tissue.   It is a strategy of moving and loading the tissue, not just stretching or mashing. This technique actually helps with reciprocal inhibition of the muscle tissue not only stretching the tight and weak side but also helping to turn on the inhibited side of the body. With this our goal isn’t only mobility but stability which is the ability to actually use the muscle through its entire range of motion not just move through that range. This type of strategy will give you a window into permanent change of that muscle or movement pattern.

Dry Needling is a term used for a procedure that involves placement of a needle into the muscle. This typically targets a trigger point and allows access to deeper muscle tissue. This can relieve discomfort by promoting a number of different responses in the body. Dry needling is a form of intramuscular myofascial therapy that is often used in conjunction with many other treatments. This is an effective treatment for acute and chronic pain, rehabilitation from injury, and even pain and injury prevention, with very few side effects. This technique is unequaled in finding and eliminating neuromuscular dysfunction that leads to pain and functional deficits.

A thin needle is used to access deep tissue easily. Most patients will not even feel the needle penetrate the skin, but once it has and is advanced into the muscle, the discomfort can vary drastically. Usually a healthy muscle feels very little discomfort upon insertion of the needle; however, if the muscle is sensitive and shortened or has active trigger points within it, the subject may feel a sensation much like a muscle cramp — which is often referred to as a ‘twitch response’.

The patient may only feel the cramping sensation locally or they may feel a referral of pain and/or similar symptoms for which they are seeking treatment. A reproduction of their pain can be a helpful diagnostic indicator of the cause of the patient’s symptoms. Patients soon learn to recognize and even welcome this sensation, as it results in deactivating the trigger point, reducing pain and restoring normal length and function of the involved muscle.

Typically, positive results are apparent within 2-4 treatment sessions but can vary depending on the cause and duration of the symptoms, overall health of the patient, and experience level of the practitioner. Dry needling in conjunction with spinal manipulation and movement medicine causes definitive and long lasting changes with no fear of negative symptoms from treatment.

DNS-Dynamic Neuromuscular Stability,  is a manual and rehabilitative approach to optimize the movement system of the body. Stimulating the body’s control can increase stability for safe and functional movement. Activating the stabilizing system to function itself is important to have effective movement.  This is often compared with core stability. Manual therapy to the integrated stabilizing system of the body can help activate the system and increase control. This impacts the locomotor system stabilization, to optimize movement.

Pavel Kolar organized this group of clinical protocols that are designed to restore and stabilize locomotor function. DNS is an encompassing strategy for many therapies to increase such stabilization of the body.

Individual therapies and approaches of many have been woven together. The exercises and advanced positions of DNS, from Developmental Kinesiology, have been used to treat and train world-class athletes.

The scope of DNS is quite broad with focus on sport, orthopedics, gastrointestinal issues, and right down to individual topics such as women’s health and pediatrics. This is possible due to the global reactions elicited in DNS treatment, where a single therapeutic measure will affect several body systems and dysfunctions.

DNS moves away from isolated treatment of joints, muscles, and nerves while encompassing those treatments into a global approach. DNS looks at an injury or performance deficit as a window into a chain or system of dysfunction that can be quickly mended.

FMS (CK-FMS) The FMS (Functional Movement Screen)  dives into the importance of screening movement and how movement contributes to our everyday lives, not just our workouts. It will help you gain a better understanding of the true relationship movement patterns play in our health and fitness goals.

The FMS fills our need to screen movement in order to identify the biggest opportunities for the individuals we are working with. The best part - it takes only 10 minutes to gain all this valuable information!

 The FMS is our tool for standardized movement screening to see how an individual, no matter their age, is moving in everyday life. It takes into account both mobility and stability and equips the professional with information to make programming decisions with precision and purpose. 

How does the FMS help with programming decisions? It identifies movement patterns the individual moves well in, patterns that can be developed or loaded. But it also identifies patterns that are not ideal and need to be protected and corrected. In other words, there is no more guessing! At the end of an FMS, you will have valuable information for that individual to create a program specific to them to foster an environment to meet their goals and keep them healthy.

At Zen Spine and Sport it is a standard operating procedure for discharge back into activities to repeat the FMS. Getting someone out of pain is no longer enough. We must look at movement to ensure success in their return to what they enjoy so they do not end up back in pain.

Furthermore at Zen Spine and Sport we also offer more specific types of assessments and corrective movement pattern based exercises an example is the CK-FMS.

SFMA(Selective Functional Movement Assessment)  Proper diagnosis is the first step to effective treatment.

The SFMA movement based diagnostic system helps provides healthcare professionals with an efficient and systematic tool to reach a comprehensive movement diagnosis.

The SFMA fills our clinical need to assess for stability and/or motor control dysfunctions as well as mobility dysfunctions.

The SFMA is our clinical assessment for those who experience pain. It is a movement based diagnostic system which systematically finds the cause of pain - not just the source - by logically breaking down dysfunctional movement patterns in a structured, repeatable assessment.

Look at it this way. When you head to the hospital for shooting arm pain, the immediate course of action is to check your heart, not your arm. The symptoms down your arm are just a result of a problem elsewhere in the body. Similarly, the SFMA focuses on underlying dysfunctional movement to find the cause of pain, not just the source. This concept is better known as regional interdependence - how seemingly unrelated problems are actually driving the dysfunction.

What makes SFMA unique? It is the first organized system that takes into account altered motor control – the inability to coordinate proper movements. This system allows us to identify the correct problems - mobility versus motor control – to best equip clinicians with the proper knowledge to help ensure  a successful outcome for our patients.

There are many great mobility treatment systems, but in the SFMA, we introduce you to our methodology on reprogramming motor control. We use the neurodevelopmental perspective – the way we learn to move as infants very similar to DNS – to create a system to reteach our brains how to communicate with our bodies.

When you leave Zen Spine and Sport, you will be armed with a repeatable diagnostic system to apply the manual techniques already in your toolbox, as well as now add a motor control component tool. 

Kinesio Taping is a rehabilitative taping technique that is designed to facilitate the body’s natural healing process while providing support and stability tomuscles and joints without restricting the body’s range of motion. It also provides extended soft tissue manipulation to prolong the benefits of manual therapyadministered within the clinical setting. Kinesiotape is safe for populations ranging from pediatric to geriatric, and successfully treats a variety of orthopedic, neuromuscular, neurological and other medical conditions. Kinesiotape can be applied in hundreds of ways and has the ability to re-educate the neuromuscular system, reduce pain and inflammation, enhance performance, prevent injury and promote good circulation and healing, and assist in returning the body to function.