Recent Blog Entries
Posted 03/18/2011
presenting at the Mid-American Athletic Trainer’s Association (MAATA) - Annual Symposium being held March 17-19 at the Doubletree Hotel in Downtown Omaha. The topic being presented is: Postural Restoration – Biomechanical Influences on the Athlete’s Upper Half and Lower Half. There are 70 athletic trainers attending this annual conference. If you’d like more information, click here! Or check out the MAATA’s website at http://maata.net/
Posted 03/03/2011
Lori Thomsen has checked out the new running shoes for 2011, and here’s her recommendations! If you’ve been waiting to buy that new pair of shoes, click here to see which pairs received her “thumbs up"…
Posted 02/22/2011
to the Postural Restoration Institute in many ways… Click here for more on Jason’s activities. Click here for Lori’s recent PRI blog.
Posted 02/22/2011
The Hruska Clinic has an excellent opportunity available for a full time outpatient physical therapist. The Hruska Clinic was the first clinic in the nation to be designated as a Postural Restoration Certified (PRC) Center and is the driving force behind the science of the Postural Restoration Institute. We are looking for a PRC physical therapist (or able to sit for certification in the near future) that is passionate about PRI – living it and practicing it. You must be highly motivated with a strong desire to learn. You will be working with a knowledgeable team of PRI physical therapists and contributing daily to the successful outcomes of the Hruska Clinic.
Requirements include:
Enthusiasm for educating patients, physical therapists, physicians and other healthcare providers in PRI
Openness to integrating with other healthcare professionals for a team approach to patient care
Eagerness to promote, grow and expand the science of PRI
Flexibility to work a full schedule consisting of a variety of patient populations from all across the country
Click Here to Apply!
Posted 02/17/2011
Ron Hruska wrote a blog on the Postural Restoration Institute’s website regarding the eye and Integration. Click here to learn more about vision integration and the upcoming course in Lincoln…
Posted 02/07/2011
Previously I discussed the cruise control mechanism of a car as it relates to the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. To understand what might happen if your autonomic nervous system is not working correctly, I will again consider the sympathetic nervous system as the accelerator and the parasympathetic nervous system as the brake. Let’s consider a common scenario of how to regulate the autonomic nervous system.
Imagine pulling your car into your garage, you place the car in park, and you notice that the engine is idling at a faster than normal pace. You perceive that the engine is operating as if you were traveling at a speed of 65 mph, yet you are parked in your garage. It sounds as if your accelerator is stuck! You know that stepping on the brake is of no help since you are already in park. What do you do? You gently press down on the accelerator, the idling speed slightly increases, and then you gently let off the accelerator and “PAUSE” - suddenly your idling speed decreases.
It is important to use management techniques that “quiet” the faster idling speed or high resting level of the autonomic nervous system. Breathing is one way to control the autonomic nervous system with a voluntary action. Imagine that you’re anxious and your engine is idling too fast. Your heart rate and breathing rate increases. One way to re-set your autonomic nervous system is to gently take a breath in and then blow the air out and “PAUSE”. This allows you to re-start the normal respiratory cycle.
Breathing is a rhythmic process, a natural cycle containing two opposing parts. We breathe in cycles, inhaling and exhaling alternately. Without one of these, the other does not exist. What would you do if you had to make a choice between inhaling and exhaling? Breathing is not one or the other. Breathing has to be both--inhalation and exhalation. There are situations in life that we tend to be concerned with, yet we deal with these situations in one way or the other.
As previously stated, the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems have opposite functions. When we are under stress, the sympathetic system raises our heart rate and respiration so that we can either run away from (flight) or “fight” whatever is threatening us. Generally, when the threat is dealt with, the parasympathetic system restores and/or slows down our heart rate and respiration. Breathing is one way to control the autonomic nervous system with a voluntary action.
For example, if you were to continue to press on the accelerator, you would continue to increase your idling speed. Likewise, if you were to continue to breathe in at a faster rate, you would continue to breathe faster and faster. Your body senses the need for more oxygen upon every increasing breath however you have yet been unable to fully exhale the carbon dioxide from the previous breaths. This “PAUSE” allows you stop this cycle and restore the normal breathing rate. In the next blog I will discuss the polarity of breathing.
Questions or comments for Jason? to send him an email.
Posted 01/20/2011
Congratulations Bobbie and Mark!
Posted 01/06/2011
The teleseminar is launching on January 11th with a new interview going up every week through March 15. Ron’s interview is scheduled for January 18th. The interviews are FREE to all, but you do need to SIGN-UP in order to receive links to the interviews. Click here for more information…
Posted 11/04/2010
In my previous blog I discussed the two parts of the autonomic nervous system: the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems. As a way to understand how the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems function in harmony, think of the analogy of a car’s cruise control. The function of a car (the human body) is to get you where you need to go. The sympathetic system is the accelerator and the parasympathetic system is the brake. You must have both in order to safely get to where you need to go. The accelerator excites the engine by burning gas, while the brake slows down and conserves burning of gas. You cannot get to your destination with only an accelerator, and you can’t stop your car without a brake. Using this analogy, you can see it would be more than a bit problematic if one or the other was not working.
A driver sets the cruise control mechanism by pushing a button when the car has accelerated to some desired driving speed. The control mechanism then takes over and begins to constantly compare the car’s current speed with the desired driving speed. If the car slows down while going up a hill, the cruise mechanism automatically depresses the accelerator (sympathetic nervous system) and thus brings the car back up to the desired driving speed. Similarly, if the car begins to exceed the desired driving speed while going down hill, the mechanism releases the accelerator to slow down the car. Whenever the car is at the desired speed, the mechanism makes no changes. The accelerator and brake will work in opposition, in the sense that any perceived error, such as a drop in speed, produces action by the system to counteract the error by changing the output of the engine.
In order to maintain health, you have to apply the brake pedal regularly in order to bring the speed of your car down and you may at times need to apply the accelerator to bring the speed of your car up. Obviously, the actions involved in performing the function of cruise control are far more complicated for the human version versus the car version, yet they are very similar.
Overuse of the accelerator (sympathetic nervous system) as seen in the states of anger, anxiety and hostility sets off the parasympathetic nervous system (brake), reflecting the autonomic nervous systems attempt to achieve balance. In a simple yet reasonable analogy, the driver must somehow maintain his purpose of keeping the car traveling at a given “balanced speed”, but be prepared at any given time to abandon that purpose if any problem should arise.
In my next blog I will discuss several different ways in which one’s autonomic nervous system may be malfunctioning, and the various symptoms that might become apparent. Please stay “tuned”!!!
Posted 09/23/2010
Yea, I know it’s cheesy, but hey it works. With fall comes a little outdoor work, and one of the biggies is raking leaves. In our clinic we try to help patients understand the importance of overcoming right side dominant tendencies which can be seen when you rake. With rare exception, when people rake, they stand with their weight shifted to the right and position the right hip behind the left. Next, we pull the rake in front of ourselves from right to left by rotating through the trunk to the left. Because of the way our bodies are made it is just easier and more natural to do it this way, but it also feeds into a pattern that increases imbalances in our bodies that lead to dysfunction and pain. Therefore, we recommend that you try to change things up by doing just the opposite. Try it. You’ll find it awkward at first, but with some diligence you’ll get the hang of it and likely find you have less back discomfort after you rake this year.
Along with the idea of shifting your weight to the left, positioning the left hip behind the right hip and pulling the rake in front of you to the right, I suggest you also try to use a broom this way, and in a few months try to shovel snow the same way. And if you’re a gardener who will be digging up your garden this fall to prepare for next spring, try to support your weight on your left leg as you push the shovel into the ground with your right foot, then turn the shovel over clockwise with your right hand being closer to the shovel head than the left hand. I hope this helps you experience less discomfort this fall with your outdoor chores.
To email Dave with any questions or comments, !
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More blog entries can be found in the archives…
Posted March 18, 2011 at 2:53pm by Becky Fisher.
