Laurie's Blogs.

So, this blog is inspired from a pod-cast I listened to:

http://www.themanualtherapist.com/2016/11/untold-physio-stories-s3e6-core-of.html

The podcasts is called Untold Physio Stories, and the guest for this one was Dr. Scotty Butcher, a Canadian physiotherapist.  The gist of the program is to discuss a short story of a physio business or practice success or failure. Scotty’s contribution was about core stability.  Basically, this is the topic around which he did his master’s degree about 10 years ago. Ten years ago, core training, stability training, activation of transverse Abdominus and multifidus were all the rage for treating back pain.  

However, if one waits long enough, we will come to learn that everything we are doing or thinking today will be proven to be wrong 10 years from now!  

Essentially training the core and working on stability was not / is not doing what we think it’s doing.  We figure that doing core exercises effectively activates specific muscles.  However, what we know now is that the movement was good and that we were actually training kinesthetic awareness and proprioception.  We weren’t being specific about activation.  But kinethetics and proprioception are now known to be the primary effect of this kind of training.

However, what we have learned over the years is that movement is key and posture is key.  So, THAT is what we need to focus on!  Let’s instead think about:

Is the muscle TIMING accurate?

Does the posture look correct?

Is the movement appropriate?

Is the exercise functional?

What does this mean for you in your canine rehab practice?

Well, what comes to MY mind is to focus more on movement exercises instead of all of the balance exercises.  

What can you do with a land treadmill?  

How can you use balance equipment and ask for movement from the dog?  

How can you cue better posture while an animal is moving?

       Bandages?  

       Manual cueing? 

       Use of a stick to tap?  

       Basic exercises in different environments?

If this makes some sense to you… Send me a SHORT video of something your trying!  I’d love to share with everyone next week!  In the meantime, I’ll get busy with videoing some things that I think fit this category!

Have a great week folks!

Cheers!  Laurie