Techniques

Adrenal Stress Points

Published: 6 January 2023
Written by Jocelyn Olivier
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Categories: General Interest, Handling Stress, Self Help Techniques, Stress, Techniques

 

At Healus Neuro Rehab Center and in NeuroMuscular Reprogramming® we use a variety of relaxation techniques to calm the nervous system down, in order to facilitates the body’s ability to heal.

 

Triple Warmer

One of those stress points we call the “Triple Warmer”.

Have a family member or friend hold your adrenal points. Two reflex points will release your adrenal stress before you go to sleep, enabling you to sleep more readily and more deeply. Once your partner finds the points, no pressure is needed. Just touching and holding those points will bring the system to equilibrium and put you to sleep.

 

The Adrenal Stress Points:

The location of the first point is on our shoulder blade 1″ from the medial border nearest the spine, and 1″ down from the top edge of the bone. If you touch the blade with 2 to 3 fingers, you can’t miss it, as it will be tender to the touch upon pressure. The second point is halfway down the back of the hand, between the 3rd and 4th hand bones (ring and little finger). Hold the points for 1-3 minutes on each side of the body or until you feel pulsation under your fingertips.
With a little attention and regularity, these simple steps will have you sleeping through the night and awakening fully restored and rejuvenated.

What Can Be Done About Frozen Shoulder?

Published: 4 December 2022
Written by Jocelyn Olivier
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Categories: Handling Stress, NMR Efficacy, Stress, Techniques

What is a REAL Frozen Shoulder?

Many clients have come in over the years with a diagnosis of ‘frozen shoulder’. A REAL Frozen Shoulder occurs when the joint capsule develops ‘Adhesive Capsulitis’.   Most shoulders are not really frozen but immobilized by co-contractions of external and internal rotators. 

What can be done when the shoulder is not really frozen; when palpation and passive ROM reveal that the capsule itself is not involved but movement without pain and restriction is not possible.

The Emotional Component

I have heard that frozen shoulder can follow an emotional trauma.  A former student came in to see me as a client. She had recently gone through two losses of people dear to her.  She developed frozen shoulder.  I’ve also heard that frozen shoulder will go away on its own after a couple of years. Can that process be speeded up? Yes, it can.

Any condition with an emotional component as history requires checking for Contralateral Coordination Dysfunction. Muscle testing reveals ALL shoulder muscles are weak. Brain Buttons turned on some of the muscles, but the shoulder is still dramatically dysfunctional. Many external rotation functions are inhibiting the internal rotator of the Subscapularis.**

Once internal rotators were working, we worked adhered and rigid shoulder tissues.

4 NeuroMuscular Reprogramming NMR® treatments

4 neuromuscular reprogramming treatments one month apart has almost completely removed the restriction and pain.

Now that the emotional factors have been addressed, in session 2 we were able to deal with some of the peripheral dysfunctions created by the main restrictions in the shoulder. We also began to work with the support and function of the neck muscles and how they contributed to the shoulder dysfunction.

In frozen shoulder, the muscles of shoulder depression dominate those of elevation. The client cannot lift their arm. Neither can they internally or externally rotate to a full potential ROM.  External rotators are usually inhibiting internal rotators to begin with… 

Resolving Scapular Adhesions in this case of Frozen Shoulder:

First, I addressed Scapular Adhesions, specifically…
Lt Rhomboid AND Lt Coracobrachialis inhibited Lt Teres Maj, Subscapularis

PMC inhibits Post Delt; Traps; Supraspinatus

The next layer of dysfunction:

Lt Subscap inhibits Lt Infraspinatus AND Supraspinatus (int rot’n inhibits ext rot’n) This was revealed after decompressing the shoulder with traction and tissue manipulation to reduce tissue rigidity.

More neck work resolved Lt Scalenes inhibit Rt Scalenes.
Lt OCI inhibits Rt OCI
Rt OCS inhibits Lt OCS
Lt Rec Cap inhibits Rt Rec Cap
(Yet another seeming reversal in dysfunction is now apparent as the neck compression issues of rotation and counter rotation are resolved.)

(Next session we need to connect the low back to Lt neck and shoulder.)

The Final Session: Pain on movement is gone, but details remain

Lt Sterno-Clavicular Joint is stuck (immobilized).
Infraspinatus inhibits Subclavius; Serratus Posterior Superior (SPS); Subscapularis
Ant Serratus inhibits Ant Deltoid. (Remember that Infraspinatus and long head of Tricep inhibited Lt Lat and Infraspinatus was the most fixated muscle in the superficial shoulder
area.)

The synergist of Subclavius, PMC is likewise inhibiting Subclavius; also P. Delt and Bicep.

Now we begin to see the layer of dysfunction under the layer we’ve been able to work with.
Subscapularis inhibiting Teres Major; Teres Major inhibiting Subscapularis (how can this be? An increase in the ROM in the joint reveals YET ANOTHER layer of dysfunctional synergistic muscle relationships.)

Teres Minor inhibits PMC AND Subclavius (once again we are looking at reciprocal inhibitions).

Rt Obliquus Capitis Superior (OCS) inhibits OC inferior (OCI); Lt eye tracking. Rt Eye tracking inhibits Lt OCI. Needs more work.

Did extensive tissue mobilization throughout the structure of upper chest and all through the arm muscles.   

Client is quite satisfied with her progress but still can’t ‘lift’ her hand behind her back to the range it was before.  These details will continue to progress with more work, but 4 sessions is extraordinarily fast to accomplish freedom from pain on movement.

NOTES:   *In the case of True Frozen Shoulder, the medical approach of forced manipulation under anesthesia is called for.

**(PT approaches given for frozen shoulder begin with exercising the external rotator functions of the shoulder. Since external rotation is usually dominant in frozen shoulder this would seem counter indicated.)

 

 

NeuroMuscular Reprogramming and Muscle Testing

Published: 17 December 2018
Written by Jocelyn Olivier
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Categories: NMR Efficacy, Techniques, Uncategorized

How does a NeuroMuscular Reprogramming practitioner go about discovering what’s not working in someone’s body? They use muscle testing!

So when a client has a specific problem, the NMR practitioner goes to the area where the symptoms are and discovers whether or not all the coordination in that area is working properly. Sometimes the area that’s tight is actually not functional; it’s weak. So we might have a situation where one might think that with a tight muscle, what is needed is to go and loosen it up. But a weak muscle doesn’t get stronger by being loosened up!

With NMR we realize that this area of the body is inhibited, and there’s some larger global consideration that is the reason why that muscle got tight in the first place. The muscle tightens in that area because of weakness. So before we start doing massage or bodywork on someone who has a tight, fixated area in their body, we need to muscle test to determine whether those muscles are on and functional, or off and inhibited.

NeuroMuscular Reprogramming

We are testing to discover how is the coordination system supporting the function of a joint and then connecting that joint with its relationship to the other joints in the body. So if so the complaint is in the hip, we want to see how that hip is affecting the opposite shoulder, or the opposite neck, for instance. Or if the complaint is in the neck, we want to know what’s the effect of the feet on the neck, or of the neck on the feet. We’re looking globally to see what all those relationships are. We want to get all those relationships sorted out and functional.

What mostly disables people in their coordination system is muscles firing out of sequence. Patterns are stored in the cerebellum in the back of the brain and the patterns don’t change until the body discovers that they aren’t working. So muscle testing is a way of cuing the brain to the fact that its strategies are dysfunctional. And in that moment of realization, the whole survival system of the body gets activated into the possibility of engaging the motor cortex at the top of the cerebrum into learning a new movement strategy to support the function of that joint and of the whole body!

NeuroMuscular Reprogramming classes are happening around the country, find out where and Enroll Today!

Avoiding Stiffness with Age

Published: 28 June 2017
Written by Bill Moulton
2 Comments
Categories: Conditioning, On The Path, Self Help Techniques, Techniques

What is Required for Avoiding Stiffness with Age?

Is your body getting stiff as you get older? Over decades, the gravitational effects of standing, walking and running causes fluids to pool in our legs, hips and low back. Sometimes our pumps, our muscles, are not being used consistently enough to keep our fluids moving.  Over time these fluids, which are rich in connective tissue cells, begin sticking the muscles of the legs together fixating us in our use or misuse patterns.  The muscles become increasingly inefficient at pumping fluids because they can’t move.  The legs feel heavy; the feet muscles get weak; plantar fascitis, shin splints and ‘neuropathy’ develop.  (I put this in quote marks because many times an ankle muscle that is not working is labeled neuropathy), often accompanied by swelling.  Some of these situations are just dysfunctional muscle coordination patterns resulting from adhesions between the layers.

Poor circulation in our legs affects the conditioning of our feet and legs for walking.  Muscles that aren’t being used become unable to move.  We feel stiff and lose the grace of moving freely. We walk in stiff and stomp along ways, using our feet as platforms rather than functional movers.

Here are 3 things you can do to avoid stiffness as you age:

  1. Stretch and wring out your tissues. The yogis have always said “To stay young, keep your spine limber.”  You can do this by holding the arms of your office or arm chair and twisting and breathing multiple times a day. Twisting your spine stimulates CerebroSpinal Fluid circulation.
  2. Hang over and dangle daily; maybe more than once. Let your hips and legs hold you up as you let your back sway and hang loose! Stiffness in your back affects your comprehension and produces cognitive confusion.
  3. Get bodywork!  The older your tissues get the more dehydrated or waterlogged they become.  Good bodywork and massage will keep those fluids moving and not sticking you together in ways that make you STIFF.  Good bodywork will wake your feet up and get them working again.

If your feet and legs are feeling heavy and weak perhaps you would benefit from a session with our talented NeuroMuscular Reprogramming® Therapists at Healus Neuro Rehab Center. Give us a call at 415 388 9945 and make an appointment today. Don’t let rigor mortis set in early…!

If you’ve never been here before and don’t understand how we can help you, you can ask for a FREE NeuroMuscular Assessment where you will meet with Jocelyn Olivier, founder and clinical director at Healus and the creator of NeuroMuscular Reprogramming NMR®.  She will assess your movement patterns and tissue quality and educate you to the best approach to correct those problems that are plaguing you.

Here is a great talk by British anatomist Gil Hedley on the facts about Fascial ‘Fuzz’ and how it sticks our layers together when we stop moving.  With NMR we test all your muscles and make sure they are all moving and working, we release your adhesions and wake up your coordination, more of your muscles working will get the work done easier. As my last client today said going out the door:  “I feel LIGHTER!”  That’s because all the stuckness was gone!

Give us a call at (415) 388-9945 and make an appointment today…Feel better for the rest of your life.

Neck Pain Can Cause Headaches, Shoulder Pain, Middle and Low Back Pain

Published: 1 February 2017
Written by Jocelyn Olivier
3 Comments
Categories: Techniques

The Biomechanics of the Neck

The neck is the most vulnerable structure in our bodies. It is composed of only small moving parts supported by a myriad of very small muscles fastening one vertebra to another and the segments of the column to the head and ribcage.  The head itself weighs a good 14 pounds in the average adult with nothing to hold it up but a moving column of bones and the tone and integrated function of the neck and shoulder muscles.

Why the Neck Develops Pain and Restriction

In addition to having very little support to start with, we engage casually in high velocity activities such as driving and take our kids to amusement park rides. Our preferred exercise activities such as snowboarding, surfing, rollerblading, skiing, provide further risk of potential whiplash injuries to the neck. The current fashion of extreme sports takes these risks to the limit.

When we injure our necks we don’t always know it.  Sometimes it takes a couple of years for the effects of a whiplash accident to show up. This is why the current auto insurance environment provides for a year to 2 years for a claim to be open pending the long-range results of even a minor impact injury.   By the time the effects are noticed the habits in the motor coordination system are long established patterns in the cerebellum. Our movement strategy has been permanently altered by the event and we don’t even know it.  All we know is that our neck hurts and doesn’t move as freely in some direction.

What is the Anatomy of a Neck Injury? 

How do we know when we’ve been injured?  How do we define an injury?  Typically our medical approach overlooks any disruption of function that is not sprained or broken or torn and bleeding.  Survival is the measure of importance when remediating problems.  Is this a life threatening issue?   Where is the branch of medicine that deals with dysfunctional coordination strategies?  What injures those strategies?   Any abrupt jolt that involves an overstretch of some tissue while other muscles spasm or contract abruptly to protect the intrinsic structures and the integrity of the spinal column can disrupt the motor coordination information governing normal function.  This disruption can have long-range effects. Once the motor coordination is disrupted we build compensation patterns or coping strategies.  Neighboring muscles begin substituting for what isn’t working.  A coping strategy is a memorized coordination for getting a movement done.  We are now using big muscles to do what the smaller muscles should be doing.  We notice we can’t turn our head without turning the whole ribcage. We feel pain when we tip our head to one side but not the other.

What corrects neck pain?

Is it enough to find all the tight muscles and trigger point them into elasticity? Not really.  Muscles that are tight are that way because they are splinting a missing function.  If you use deep tissue releases to force those muscles to relax you can be left with a lack of support altogether and a vulnerability to further injury.  At best the body is going to have to put back the tension that was just forcefully removed by sustained pressure or fascial stretching.

Is it possible to really correct these dysfunctional coordination patterns once they’ve been disrupted?  The answer is YES. We need a strategy for re-educating the coordination among the muscles.

First, we need to look at all the movement potential built into the neck.

Second we need to determine which movement functions are not enabled.

Third we need a strategy for reprogramming the coordination system.

Fourth we need to know which patterns need to be corrected first.

How to Change Neck Pain

In order to understand neck problems one needs to understand what the normal movement potentials of the neck are.

At each segment of the neck it is able to Flex, Extend, Side bend, Forward Translate, Lateral Translate and Rotate.

Due to its preferred curvature in extension the flexion and extension functions need to be corrected first.  Side bending is always accomplished only when the extension function is enabled.

Because everything is being supported in gravity, the problems at the top are built on the problems at the base.  Even though many clients report symptoms at C2 (‘My neck is out of place’), you can’t change the top before you change the base.  The biggest problems in neck function, those that can send pain and weakness into the arms and hands are rotations and counter rotations at T2, C7, C6 and C5. This results in compression and nerve impingement. Trying to adjust this situation abruptly can make it worse.  Dealing with the upper thoracic rotations first enables the neck to even begin to be able to unpack the problem of rotations.

If the base is locked in flexion, rotation will not be possible. In a normal neck, rotation is enabled with the column in extension. Being locked in flexion is what causes herniation and bulging discs.  Simply relaxing the muscles of the neck will never solve these deep coordination dysfunctions.

In Conclusion…

A good strategy for correcting neck problems requires a detailed understand of the movement functions of the neck and a method for determining priorities in correcting them. More information on strategies for reprogramming the neck begins in Module 3 of NMR.  Find more information on training in NeuroMuscular Reprogramming NMR®  on www.NeuroMuscular-Reprogramming.com.

See the Video: