First of all I want to wish all of you a Merry Christmas!

I have begun to write the book on Muscle Release Therapy, MRTh(R) and have begun with the its history. I am a firm believer that in order to truly understand a theory and technique there truly needs to be a history protocol to it. Twenty minutes a day, and hopefully by this time next year we will be ready to publish.

This blog post is about two bony structures that act in conjunction with one another. This is one reason why it is important to understand functional movement patterns when determining pain patterns. The picture is of the Zygomatic bone and its counterpart bone is the Clavicle. The Zygomatic bone acts as a keystone structure of the cranium and in Cranio-Sacral work has a specific release. The Clavicle supports the integrity of the shoulder joint; and that is only the beginning of their commonality.


In your typical Anatomy class you learn regions of the body, in reality there is no escaping that the human body is one entity, controlled by one brain. Although many professions would argue that the suture lines are fused together as we age, I am sure Dr. Sutherland, D.O. and his disciples that teach Cranial Sacral work would disagree as vehemently. Through my many years of developing specific release patterns to aide the dentist and orthodontist help align bite, help with sleep apnea, snoring and occlusion issues, I have found out that by getting movement in the suture articulations good things have happened.

So how do these two structures compare? It is a long story so hang on! One muscle that is common is the Sternocleidomastoid, which as any Massage Therapist will tell you is often a difficult one to get to stay in a neutral or relaxed posture. The common point of attachment is the mastoid process of the temporal bone. It's distal attachments are on the Sternum, or breast bone, and the Clavicle. That is how it gets its name, its points of attachment. It's action is to assist in skull rotation through the interaction of both SCM's.


The Zygomatic bone is basically your cheekbone and helps give your face its symmetry. There is a direct connection to the Temporal bone and any shift in this bone will cause the Temporal bone to become stuck which will neurologically shut down the SCM to prevent injury. When this happens the Clavicle has unnatural tension applied to it and will be rendered immovable. In my practice individuals will often come in with Thoracic Outlet Syndrome, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, an inability to raise an arm over their head, and chronic upper back pain.

What the therapist must do in this scenario is create a synchronized movement between the two structures. This balancing in tension not only brings about a natural balance between the Zygomatic and the Clavicle but also permits the Temporal bone to become the wobbling wheel it needs in order to help balance normal body movement.

This is a brief description to show how commonality in structures that need to be balanced for proper movement. This is how Muscle Release Therapy, MRTh(R) assesses at the body and how it aides in proper tension on the skeleton. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us.

We will be offering online continuing education courses that address these type of issues and next fall Angel Velotta will once again present the Muscle Release Therapy, MRTh(R) course. For more information please contact Kathy at Kathy@chagrinvalleywellness.com.

From all of us at Chagrin Valley Wellness Center and The Gibbons School of Massage Therapy and Integrated Medicine we wish a Happy Holiday season.




Dennis

First of all I would like to take this opportunity to once again thank everyone that offered prayers, thoughts, good wishes, and support to Marge and our family over the past four plus months. For those that didn't know my wife, Marge, experienced a brain aneurysm on July 27, 2013, and is presently recuperating and everyday we see improvement, we thank God for this blessing.

Next I want to apologize for not writing but with the circumstances my time was definitely tied up. We have also been conducting a Muscle Release Therapy, MRTh® certification course that is being taught by Angel Velotta, LMT~ who has been certified in Muscle Release Therapy, MRTh® for five years now and has a practice at Southwest General Hospital. We will once again be offering this course in the Fall of 2014. In addition to this course I have also been teaching an Anatomy of Movement course that has detailed the different movement patterns of the body. 

I would also like to announce that beginning in January 2014 we will be offering on line continuing education courses for both the professional and lay person. These courses will be live and interactive so there will be actual demonstrations and the ability to ask and have questions answered at that time. They will also be recorded for future viewing. Watch for announcements on these courses over the next few weeks!

Now for the topic of this blog, recently, I gave a class on the "Core" group of muscles. For anyone that knows me, I am not a fan of how we perceive that word "Core". With that being said I do want to talk about the importance of what I refer to as an initiator muscle that engages all of the other 30+ muscles that make up the center of strength for movement. The Serratus Anterior muscle wraps around the side of the rib cage and, attaches' along the front side near the breast bone and on the back side along the border of the shoulder blade~close to the spine. This muscle performs the function of moving the shoulder blade and the rib cage in breathing and movement of the shoulder joint.

Recently, I showed two long time clients how they could use this muscle to improve ones' tennis game, and the other to be able to play her violin in concert without her shoulder hurting. We don't often think of the ribs or the shoulder blade to move in flexing and extending pattern but for this conversation we will use this definition. Any time a bony structure moves to the center that is flexion and away from center extension. In an upcoming web training that I will be teaching, I will go into greater depth on this topic. 

With the tennis player we needed to help strengthen his forehand delivery. The first item on the agenda was to cue the brain that we needed to extend the upper extremity to its maximum length without putting stress on the shoulder joint. Most causes for "tennis elbow" is the abnormal tensions placed on the joints with too much emphasis on the shoulder which places the elbow under duress. So how did we do this? By the way the same advice was given to the violin player! We taught the individual to learn to engage/disengage the tendons of the fingers, especially the middle finger. When the tendons are disengaged it permits for a much smoother extension of the forearm and arm by removing the unnatural tension that is placed on the forearm extensor muscles of the forearm. When striking the ball the tension is re-engaged which now creates a dynamic tension on the forearm, and removes tension on the shoulder which allows the elbow to complete the follow through. His immediate report back was that he hadn't hit his forehand that well in years. Oh, by the way the violin player reported that she had no pain after her concert!

Where does the Serratus Anterior come into play on all of this? Prior to engaging any of your muscles one must learn to engage, not contract, this muscle. As this muscle engages it cues the brain into centering the entire body and prepares it for movement. On engagement it works with the Rhomboid (the muscle along the spine in the picture) and positions the shoulder blade properly to support general movement. The positioning sends the proper neurological information out to the body; no matter where the movement is being generated from, to create the proper tension to be applied to the right part of the skeleton. Remember all movement is just a readjustment of tensions on the skeleton, that is Tensegrity.

In closing, if you are exercising and they have you doing your back muscles the primary muscles that they are going to work on are these Rhomboids. Once again these muscles are to engage not contract and should not become dominant as your shoulder blades will then move off center and distort the proper centering and tension that is necessary for co-ordinated movement.

Please have a happy and joyous holiday season and remember there is always....
a Reason to HOPE!

Any and all questions and comments are appreciated.

Dennis Gibbons, LMT