If you’re looking for a book that’ll really help you understand what to look for when doing body-readings, this book is it. Muscles: Testing and Function, with Posture and Pain includes explanations for different postural presentations and also tells you what muscles will be correspondingly tight or weak. It should be required reading in all SI programs.
Want to improve your body-reading skills? Want to understand what different postures probably mean for the clients standing in front of you? Check out this article from Testosterone Nation (a body building website). It is full of useful tests that you can use to determine what’s going on with your client.
Another fantastic resource is EM201 from Egoscue University. It’s an online class that costs you $50 but shows you all kinds of fantastic ways to read bodies. There are some companion books, the most clinically useful of which is Pain Free.
May your body-reading skills improve immensely!
As many of you know, long-time Advanced Rolfer, chiropractor, teacher, mentor to new Rolfers, and generous contributor to the Rolf Forum Don Hazen has been diagnosed with cancer and is undergoing medical treatment that presents a significant financial strain. Here is a chance for all of us to help out and receive something in return.
This one-day workshop is an excellent way to help Don, learn some interesting and effective ways of treating injuries to the legs, earn one manipulation credit with the Rolf Institute, and enjoy some camaraderie with fellow Rolfers. A party will be held immediately after the workshop at Art Riggs’ home. The party will be open to workshop participants as well as any other Rolfers and significant others who would like to socialize and make a donation to the fund. Even if you cannot attend, please consider making a donation to Don by clicking on the “Donate” button. It will be greatly appreciated.
Class title: Soft Tissue and Movement Strategies for Resolving Trauma to the Lower Limb—An Integrated Approach for Rehabilitation
Class Description: We all have dealt with the complex chain of events that occur in the foot, knee, hip, pelvis, and resultant strain up the body when our clients injure just one link in the chain. This workshop will examine the kinesiological, myofascial, and joint adaptations that impede healing, and will give numerous treatment options to help return the whole chain to normal function. For a better understanding of the workshop, please read the two-part article by Art Riggs. Click here for part 1. Click here for part 2. The workshop will follow this article closely. Even if you are not interested in the workshop, you may find the article interesting and thought provoking.
TO SIGN UP: This workshop is planned on short notice and we want to accommodate as many Rolfers as possible in order to provide the maximum support for Don. Although it may be possible for late registration, we need to know as soon as possible how large a space to rent. Please decide as soon as possible if you plan to attend and leave your name and email below in the spaces provided at the bottom of the page. Your email address will not be displayed publicly. To pay for your spot in the class, please click the PAY NOW button below (look to the bottom left of the text for “Don’t have a paypal account?” to make payments with your credit card).
If paying by check, please make it out to Don Hazen and mail to:
Art Riggs
4666 Fair Ave.
Oakland, CA 94619
Presenter: Art Riggs, Certified Advanced Rolfer™
Date: Sunday, March 22, 2009, 9 AM – 6 PM (This workshop would best be presented as a three-day class, but in one day we will move fast and cover all material with plenty of time for hands-on practice in short practice sessions)
Location: MIG Meeting Place, 800 Hearst Ave., Berkeley CA 94710 (click for Google Map).
Cost: $125 for 8 hours of class—The Rolf Institute has very generously waived their normal fee for providing the one manipulation credit for this class.
For questions or more information contact Art Riggs at salvetanworkshop@AOL.com or 510 482-9427.
Comments on the workshop:
When Art Riggs first pointed out to me that the hamstrings functioned differently in hip extension and knee flexion, that we could use this to understand knee problems and that we should treat the proximal attachments differently from the distal ones, he changed my hamstring work forever. Art’s original training in kinesiology has always informed his Rolfing but it is nowhere more apparent and useful than in his unique understanding of myofascial influences on the knee joint. I cannot recommend this workshop too strongly. Art’s viewpoint regarding gait patterns and the myofascial influences on the knee joint is essential knowledge for any effective management of misalignment between the upper and lower leg and the resultant strains and feedback loops with the foot, knee, hip and pelvis. I wouldn’t miss it
~Michael Salveson, Rolf Institute Advanced Faculty
I heartily recommend the upcoming workshop on the knee given by Art Riggs. Art Riggs’ knowledge is encyclopedic, particularly when it comes to knees. I have assisted Art in a number of trainings and I have found his patient, thorough, hands-on approach to teaching enables the student to readily absorb knowledge and new skills.
~Bob Robinson, Rolfing since 1974
If you have yet to pledge or donate money to the Ida P. Rolf Research Foundation, please consider it again! Donations can now be made online with credit card.
This page on chirogeek.com was recommended by Ari Globerman in Florida. It covers the anatomy and physiology of the intervertebral discs.
The intervertebral discs may be thought of as soft and tough pads that separate the bones (vertebrae) of the spine from one another. Their basis function is three-fold: 1) they act as a ligament by holding the vertebrae of the spine together; 2) they act as a shock absorber, which helps carry the downward weight (axial load) of the body while the human is in an up-right position; and 3) they act as pivot point, which allows the spine to bend, rotate and twist.
There are 23 discs in the human spine: 6 in the neck (cervical region), 12 in the middle back (thoracic region), and 5 in the lower back (lumbar region). This page shall focus on the lumbar spine; however, the thoracic and cervical spines are similar in make-up.
To read the rest, click here.
Here’s an excerpt from the much talked about article “Cell Biology Meets Rolfing” by David Grimm in Science Magazine from November 2007.
By the second day of the conference, things began to gel. A clinician-scientist panel fostered a dialogue between the two groups, and a networking lunch sparked new collaborations. “I heard clinicians talking about how manipulating fascial stiffness was key to their interventions,” says UT Southwestern’s Grinnell. Now he plans to study the cell biological basis of stiffness and how it might contribute to wound repair and scarring. Huijing says he also learned new things from the alternative therapists–and he found that he had something to teach them as well. Establishing fascia research as a legitimate field, he says, will guarantee that these interactions continue.
For those who didn’t get a chance to read the whole thing yet, you can check it out here.
Shoes influence lower limb muscle activity and may predispose the wearer to lateral ankle ligament injury is a study at the Institution of Motion Analysis & Research, Orthopaedic & Trauma Surgery in the UK that sought to measure the influence of shoes on injuries to lateral ankle ligaments.
Following foot inversion, the EMG signal showed an initial peak muscle contraction followed by a sustained smaller contraction. Both changes were significantly greater in shoes compared to the barefoot condition for all tested degrees of inversion. Muscle contraction following sudden inversion of the foot was significantly greater when wearing shoes. This greater muscular contraction may be an intrinsic mechanism to oppose the increased moment created by the inverted foot/shoe condition, and hence, may counter balance the increased tendency to injure the lateral ankle ligaments created by wearing shoes.
Hello, San Francisco Rolfers!
If you’re here, you probably already received word about a Rolfing group in the works. Quarterly meetings will be in the evenings at 6:30PM and will be attended by Rolfers! Meetings would give us all the opportunity to share the challenges and triumphs of our practices, to talk about the difference between a mechanoceptor and a nociceptor and why it may be important or irrelevant, to delve into the deep philosophical and metaphysical underpinnings of our work, and to settle the age-old argument over boxers and briefs. » Continue reading “Do San Francisco Rolfers like to do it in groups?”
All over the internet and in books on structural integration, you’ll find countless claims about “trauma being stored in our tissues.” For some, this can be a hard pill to swallow – it was for me – but neurobiological investigations bear out this metaphorical claim. New tools to investigate the mechanisms involved in the experience of pain are yielding some surprising (or perhaps not so surprising) insights. » Continue reading “How can trauma be stored in the body?”
Since most people looking for info on SI don’t really want all that super-detailed discussion of random dysfunctions of mind-body and the metaphysical/philosophical/stuff that goes along with that, I decided that we needed a totally separate space here…There are posts carried over from the old structuralintegration.info, so feel free to peruse the past.
