Recent Blog Entries
Posted 10/19/2011
Halloween is fast approaching, and our staff will be having a pumpkin carving contest to raise money and food for the local food bank. Our patients, families and friends will be able to vote for their favorite jack-o-lantern, and contribute to a great cause by donating non-perishable food for the Lincoln Food Pantry. So, if you have an appointment next week remember your donation and vote for your choice to win our contest!
Posted 10/17/2011
A few weekends ago on a beautiful Saturday morning we took our 3 young boys to a pumpkin patch just south of Lincoln and had a great time. I will say Nebraska definitely knows how to do pumpkin patches. There were jumping castles and giant inflatable pillows to hop on, trike rides for the kids, spooky houses, games, and of course hayrack rides to pick out pumpkins. One of the games that was there was a maze made of a brick pathway in which you had to get from the start to the finish only taking right turns. It turned out to be tricky and the solution required about 15 turns in circles to get to the finish (kind of like driving downtown on one way streets trying to find a parking space on a Saturday afternoon). Our kindergartener, not reading the directions, saw the start and finish and said “This is easy!” and with 2 left turns made it through the maze. Life was much easier when we could go left. Most of us in a way are trying to negotiate life only being able to make right turns. Not literally of course but we are all constantly fighting the tendency to shift and move to the right more than the left. As you all know one of the main tenets of our theory and treatment centers on the belief that we are all asymmetrical and right side dominant creatures. We prefer and feel more comfortable standing on our right leg, reaching with our right arm, looking with our right eye, etc. We feel this creates imbalance within our body that can lead to dysfunction and pain. Our treatment focus will often then focus on ways to encourage your body to move and shift to the left.
This week in our staff meeting we discussed 4 things, that we call reference centers, which can help us to move our bodies to the left, or if not present can prevent you from moving to the left. The first is your left inner thigh muscle. That is often one of the first muscles we want our patients to feel as it can pull our pelvis or center of gravity to the left. There are of course specific things to make sure this happens in a correct manner but in general we want our patients to feel their left inner thigh. The second thing we discussed was the ability to feel your right arch when you walk. If you have a tendency to walk on the outside of your right foot you will never properly push yourself to the left side when you walk. We want you to be able to evert (foot turned out with little toes up) your right foot, and feel your right arch to propel your body to the left side when you walk. This can be done with proper shoes (see other posts in regards to proper shoe wear), orthotics, or other activities to encourage that motion. The third thing that can push you to the left is by looking with your eyes to the right. Our bodies subtly move the opposite direction our eyes are looking. In order to properly get our bodies to the left we need to be able to look to the right. Once on our left side, however we need to be able to then look to the left and have the ability to stay on our left side and not move back to the right. So if you have been asked to do some eye activities with your exercise program do not forget eye motion to the right as a way to assist you to get to your left side. The fourth reference center that we discussed today was your right wrist. If someone is very strongly pulled or oriented to the right side we will see the tendency to flex their right wrist or fist the right hand as if they were using a bar or something to literally pull their bodies to the right. The ability to relax and extend your right wrist with gait and during your exercises will assist you in getting to the left, or conversely if you do not relax your right wrist you will be more challenged in your ability to shift left. These are 4 things that as therapists and patients we can use or check to make sure our abilities to overcome our right dominance is maximized. Hopefully this information is helpful for you all and may even help us negotiate our life of mazes by being able to make left turns and right turns whenever we want. Unfortunately however it cannot help with parking downtown with all those one way streets.
Questions or comments for Torin? to send him an email.
Posted 10/13/2011
Happy Running!
Lori
To email Lori, !
Posted 10/12/2011
Recently here at the Hruska Clinic we have been dealing with some technical issues. A power outage damaged our phone and voicemail system and access to our server for a few days. Things are looking better now but if we did not return a message (phone or e-mail) please contact us again so we can make sure we answer any questions you may have. Thanks for your patience as we get our systems back on track!
Posted 10/05/2011
In this video, Lori discusses how devices such as the Power Lung could help your physical therapy program…
Happy Running!
Lori
To email Lori, !
Posted 09/27/2011
You may have recently read an article posted on our website, The Value of Blowing Up a Balloon. We commonly use balloons in our clinic to assist our patients with improving normal diaphragmatic breathing, ribcage position and improving postural mechanics. Every day, I teach my patients how to breathe with their exercise programs.
Many individuals are habitual mouth-breathers, inhaling and exhaling through their mouth. When this is done, you do not correctly use your diaphragm muscle, but rather use muscles of your anterior chest wall and neck to help you breathe. This can become a major contributor to pain patterns including: neck pain, shoulder tension, back pain, forward head posture, TMJ pain and dysfunction, headaches, asthma, snoring, sleep apnea and many others.
I ask you to consider how you breathe. Normal diaphragmatic breathing involves inhalation through your nose, and exhalation through your mouth. It is for this reason, that nearly every exercise at the Hruska Clinic involves a breathing component, and sometimes a balloon. Holding your breath or breathing through your mouth during physical activity results in inappropriate muscle activity and can contribute to pain and dysfunction and/or hinder your rehabilitation process.
Questions or comments for Jen? to send her an email!
Posted 09/21/2011
Please bear with us as this new addition is added on to our existing building. Construction will be completed in January 2012.
What is PRI Vision? Click here to learn more…
Posted 09/20/2011
Click here to read an excellent article on the why blowing up a balloon is such an important part of your home program…
Posted 09/09/2011
Lori is taking questions for her running blog! So here is your chance to ask our favorite “PRI running expert” whatever is on your mind… Lori will choose several of the submitted questions and make video blogs that will be posted here! To email your question(s), …
Posted 08/31/2011
Questions or comments for Torin? to send him an email.
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More blog entries can be found in the archives…
Posted October 19, 2011 at 3:07pm by Becky Fisher.
