The Less Boring Adductor Group

This next muscle post is going to be a little different. I am going to tackle a group of muscles as opposed to an individual muscle. The main reason for this is because i get bored easy, and i don't want to bore anyone else either. This group is the hip adductor group. Each one of the adductor muscles are important, however, i don't always know what adductor i am working on, so i usually address them in my practice as just the adductors. They are really important muscles to athletes, such as football players and sprinters who requires fast, sudden directional changes.

The hip adductor muscles are the muscles in your inner thigh and groin. They consist of 5 muscles. The pectineus, adductor brevis and adductor longus are known as the short adductors which go from the pelvis to the thigh bone. The gracilis and adductor magnus are the long adductors which go from the pelvis to the knee.

The function of the adductors, as the name gives away, adducts the leg or brings it towards the midline of the body. They also stabilize and control the legs and also help in medially rotating the leg and flexing the hip.

The adductors can be overworking as well and sometimes underworking. The pectineus muscle sometimes will be overworking for bigger stronger hip flexors like the psoas and that can cause groin strains in athletes. If you stretch the adductors out and they are compensating and stabilizing the body, without strengthening the underworking muscle, you will leave the body unstable and more prone to injury. Another option is the body will tighten those adductors up again, because it needs that stability and the pain to return.

In athletes i have worked on, the adductors are a huge player in keeping them healthy and functioning at their best! If you, or someone you know, have been having groin pain, i believe NKT is the best way to find out what's going on. Find an NKT practitioner near you!

Neurokinetic Therapy: The Basics

My practice is what i consider my art. I try to pull from all different modalities and learn as much as i can so i can help my clients to the best of my ability. There is one modality that has changed how i look at the body and has helped me understand movement and anatomy better than i ever have. I took NKT level 1 last October. Neurokinetic therapy or NKT is a system used to correct movement dysfunction in the body.

One of the biggest things that NKT has taught me is that the body will always have a reason. There is always a reason for tightness and pain. The body is smart and it will do whatever it has to do to keep itself upright and moving. The founder or NKT, David Weinstock always says "don't poke for no reason." And i have adopted this outlook and stopped releasing, stretching, and strengthening the body for no reason.

The basis for NKT starts in the motor control center of the brain. The MCC stores all movement patterns. When muscles aren't working, other muscles have to step up and provide the body with stability. When muscles overwork it's no surprise when there is pain and tightness.

When most massage therapists do deep tissue work they will go straight for the tight and painful area and release it. That will only help for a short time because it leaves the body unstable and it will have to find that stability again once the client gets up off the table. The real problem is the muscles that aren't working correctly NKT helps find the root cause of the issue and correct the dysfunctional pattern so that we will achieve lasting results.

I have seen amazing results with NKT. I find clients who have chronic issues who have tried everything, see great results with NKT. Athletes who have hit a wall with their time or weight can often break through after getting assessed. Know why you have pain and correct it, your body will thank you!

Stay healthy and have a great day!

You Can't Run Without It!

I'm going to continue with the muscles of the leg today in this anatomy post. This next muscle is one i find dysfunctional a lot. It is a two joint muscle and is imperative to healthy walking and healthy knees. It's one of the four quadricep muscles, the rectus femoris! The rectus femoris or the rec fem as i affectionately call it, sits in the middle of the front of the thigh and runs straight down from hip to knee.

Because it's a two joint muscle, it functions to both flex the thigh at the hip as well as extend the knee joint. The rec fem is a weak hip flexor and is more of a helper to the psoas and illiacus. It's also an antagonist or functional opposite to the hamstrings.

I have found the rec fem to be sometimes overworking and sometimes underworking. When it overworks it can put a lot of strain on the patellar tendon and cause knee issues. When it's underworking it can cause groin, hamstring, or even low back to make up for it and cause pain and dysfunction.

I worked on a marathon runner who had a painful hamstring a while ago. She got to the point to where she couldn't even run a mile because she was in so much pain. Her rec fem was underworking and her hamstrings had to stabilize for it. Once we got her rec fem working again, her hamstring pain went away and she was able to run her double digit distances again. The rec fem is an important muscle to healthy movement and running!

Appreciate your rec fems today and have a wonderful day!

TFL

Well, it's time for me to get back in the swing of things. I went on an interview yesterday and i think i have found the place for me. I have spent countless hours trying to decide what my  dream job would look like. I knew i wanted a place that would value my vision, and respect the kind of work i like to do. I wanted a place where i can learn from other therapists, and also, maybe they could learn from me, and a place that values going out into the community and participating and promoting what we do. I have found that place. More on that as it becomes more official. :)

Lets get on with my anatomy post. This next muscle is a fun one. I have gotten the privilege to have A LOT of experience on this specific muscle because my husband has had issues with his in the past. It's a muscle that's name sounds super fancy and can cause super fancy problems if it's not working right.
This muscle is the Tensor Fascia Latae of the TFL.

The TFL is located on the outside of the hip and attaches on the outer edge of the illiac spine and goes down to blend into the IT band.

The TFL does many different functions, it's a hip flexor, rotates the leg inward, as well as abducts the leg or pulls the leg away from the midline of the body.

If the TFL is overworking, it can cause a lot of strain on the IT band and in turn cause pain and dysfunction in both the knee and the hip. I see this in a lot of runners. Some people want to foam roll their IT bands, that's great, but if you don't know why  you are foam rolling, it won't do much good in the long run.

The TFL can be underworking as well. If that happens, sometimes the groin muscles will have to overwork to stabilize the hip and that causes quite a bit of pain as well.

A good example of this is, my husband played competitive disc golf for many years. During his career he developed debilitating pain in his right hip that went all the way down the outside of his right leg and eventually started effecting his knee.   In disc golf he constantly used a run up and plant on the outside of his right leg. We found his TFL compensating for most of his adductor muscles as well as other core muscles. Once we started working with him, his pain lessened greatly, and today, he is pain free.

If your an athlete and you have problems with your IT band, you might want to check out your TFL!

Have a healthy day everyone!