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Prayer Squat Pose

If you think about pre-historic man, we used to squat and kneel often.  We would often be in these types of postures but modern computers, sitting, driving has altered our life, posture, and influenced un-natural movements that create muscle/joint imbalances which contributes to things like lower back pain, neck pain, and shoulder pain.

If you are someone who sits a lot, needs to improve your mobility or posture then this is a fantastic exercise.  The prayer squat pose requires your to squat down and place your elbows on the inside of the knees.  While performing this exercise you will have to try and squat your butt to the floor or as close as it goes.

By doing this you will force a lot of weight into the ankles, knees, and hips.  As a result, this requires ankle mobility (in extension), some mild knee flexibility, and even more hip movement.

Since the body is innately smart and if you do not have the range of motion you need, your body will compensate.  One of the ways your body will compensate in this position is that you will round the back.  This also indicates that you may have poor back extension and too tight of shoulders.  Well, with time and practice on this exercise you can increase your mobility in all these areas.

Start by doing this exercise and holding the position for at least 10-15 seconds if you can.  From there, slowly ramp up your time and you will notice improvements.

The Major Difference Between Chiropractic & Physical Therapy

When you get injured who do you go and see? What is the major difference between the two professions?

Physical therapists tend to look into rehabilitation, strengthening, and stretching exercises.  Basically, when you get injured you try and rehab that particular area.  In my opinion, my most physical therapist places are reactive in that they wait until you are injured (most people do that anyway).  Additionally, most physical therapist will see you initially and then send you to do self directed rehab where you will likely work with a rehab tech and not necessarily with the PT themselves.

Chiropractic on the other hand focuses on adjustments to the spine and other areas to help restore mobility, range of motion, and mechanics to the spine.  This in turn stimulates that brain and spinal cord (CNS) which controls all your body.  Many Chiropractors focus on quality of life, wellness, and being proactive not reactive.

In summery, you should likely being doing both!  You can achieve much greater benefits when you combine therapists and work together than independently.

Decompress & Stretch Your Lower Back 

Having low back pain is no fun, which is why you should use this technique for prevention.  This technique allows the bodies vertebrae so separate which will increase the space between the disc.  By doing this technique it is very much like a pump, where the disc gets to decompress and recompress.  The benefit of this is that the spine not only gets movements but it allows fluid to exchange within the spine and disc areas.  It is very useful to do this if you are suffering lower back pain or even after a heavy lifting day.  When performing this low back exercise, make sure you give it about 5 seconds of decompression with a few seconds rest.  Do this a few times and your lower back will likely feel instant relief and you will feel the spine stretching!

Treating Rib Injuries in Jiu-Jitsu with Graston

If you are in sports or even Jiu-Jitsu you will likely come across an anterior (front sided) rib sprain/strain.  The ribs can be very tender and it can often be painful at the cartilage area (especially when doing sit-ups, sneezing, and other forceful activities).  When trying to heal any structure it is important to treat in various directions.  Using Graston Technique we are able to scrape away scar tissue and stimulate blood flow.  This is very important because the cartilage is not very vascular and therefore, healing times may be fairly slow and subject to re-injury.   Any structure that has poor blood flow will likely be slower at healing. This technique, is amazing at improving healing time and improving mobility to affected and injured areas.

The major difference between a Medical Subluxation and Chiropractic Subluxation is actually quite massive, not only by definition but by the treatment as well.  Medical subluxation deals with a dislocation or displacement of the joint.  One of the most common dislocations is seen in the shoulder.  When a medical dislocation occurs there is often intense pain, swelling, as well as disruption of the two surfaces of the joint as well as to the soft tissue structures (such as the muscles and especially the ligaments).  The primary goals of this dislocation is to rest it (usually immobilization) and then when the patient is out of pain, begin the process to stabilize the injury.  Essentially, this is where rehabilitation and strengthening the joint come into play.

On the other hand, we have a Chiropractic Subluxation.  While there are different words for this, the basic premise is that a Chiropractic Subluxation is a spinal segment that is has a reduced range of motion.  This in turn can alter joint biomechanics, physiology, and can cause the body to have neural lesions (decreased neural stimulation).  The decrease in motion can cause the body to compensate while the decreased neural activity can place pressure on a the nervous system which leads to dysfunction and Ill-health as the nerves that leave the spine also go to the muscles and organ systems.  The way Chiropractors go about treating this is by applying a controlled force to help move the joint into a correct position.

Fix Your Jiu-Jitsu Injuries 

As many of you know I train jiu-jitsu often so I have personally and professionally dealt with a lot of these injuries.  That being said, rib injuries in jiu-jitsu are very common and learning how to rehabilitate them properly can enhance your recovery from them.

In this part 2 episode, I go over stretching the ribs which helps to lengthen the ribcage, cartilage, and the muscles in between the ribs.  Using a belt or a strap you can use this technique to help elongate the ribcage better.  Keep in mind that this will also stretch the shoulders but if you are suffering from an acute or fairly recent rib injury, progressing to this stretch/exercise too soon may exacerbate the symptoms.