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<span style="font-weight: 400;">Do you wonder what more you can do to help your clients with recurring injuries?</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Do you have CrossFit clients who want to increase their performance level for their regionals?</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Do you gain back pain clients in your Pilates class and worry if you are giving them the right exercises?</span>

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<span style="font-weight: 400;">Here we are looking at one of the main reasons why our clients suffer discomfort from their lifestyles and fall short of their optimal performance level during exercise. We are also going to explain how you can get immediate results easily with this revolutionary technique which, while relatively new to the fitness industry, has been around for many years. </span>

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<span style="font-weight: 400;">Firstly, let’s look at the problem:</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Since technology has taken such a dramatic role in our lives we, and our clients have become more sedentary and often find ourselves bent over our iPhones, computer screens and spending many hours driving around all over the place because it’s easier and faster. Then as we understand that movement is good we go and use repetitive exercise movements in an attempt to counterbalance this.</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">However, the body has not had time to evolve to this kind of environment and is attempting to compensate with a variety of adaptations. Muscles are reacting to protect joints that have spent much of the day static and are then expected to function to full capacity during our favorite activities. Nerves can become tethered and joints become stiff and we wonder why we and so many of our clients have low-grade non-specific aches and niggles and also what on earth can we do about it?! </span>

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<span style="font-weight: 400;">But when clients want to compete with peers in our HIIT, insanity, Metafit or Grit classes they are struggling with stiffness in their burpees, tuck jumps and plyometrics. They have functional asymmetries like a rotated pelvis and functional scoliosis that during our Pilates or Core Conditioning classes become ‘glued’ into place potentially enhancing their low back pain. Overactive Pec Minor gives them a protracted shoulder posture which hinders their thoracic spines’ ability to extend during their overhead squat in CrossFit or push presses in BODYpump. Functional leg length discrepancies and quadricep dominance give our runners, cyclists, and triathletes achy knees. </span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Maybe you have an overweight client who doesn’t do any of the above but simply wants you to help him lose weight? Well, they will also need the ability to move freely right? </span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">So let’s look at one of these compensations in more detail:</span>

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<b>SubClinical Muscle Spasm</b>

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<b>What is Muscle Spasm? </b><span style="font-weight: 400;"> </span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">In practical terms, it is “A muscle that cannot relax” applied from the work by Jiri Dvorak &amp; Ribot-Ciscar</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">SubClinical Muscle Spasm is muscle spasm that is not painful.</span>

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<span style="font-weight: 400;">Work carried out by Ribot-Ciscar and colleagues, abstract below...</span>

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<ol>
 	<li><i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Ribot-Ciscar, M. F. Tardy-Gervet, J. P. Vedel and J. P. Roll </span></i></li>
</ol>
<i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Summary “The activities of human muscle spindle primary endings were recorded in the lateral peroneal nerve using the microneurographic method. The aim of the study was to test whether voluntary isometric contraction causes any after-effects, first in the resting discharge of muscle spindle primary endings and secondly in their responses to a slow ramp stretch. To investigate the latter point, the initial angular position of the ankle was passively adjusted until the unit fell silent, in order to introduce a delay in the responses to muscle stretch”</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">............they found that</span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> “Isometric voluntary contraction led to changes in muscle spindle stretch sensitivity which resulted in a reduction in the stretch threshold and a decrease in the muscle spindle dynamic sensitivity. These data suggest that the after-effects observed may have been triggered by static fusimotor neurones. The results are discussed with reference to the theory according to which the processing by the CNS of muscular proprioceptive messages deals mainly with signals arising from muscles stretched during movement, and it is concluded that the coactivation of any motoneurones during the contraction facilitates the coding of the parameters of forthcoming stretching movements, by the muscle spindles”. </span></i>

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<span style="font-weight: 400;">This physiology has not been shown to be present in what is considered a ‘tight’ muscle. </span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">No single method will help all ‘types’ of muscle spasm of course, this is one of many ways that can potentially help, including trigger points, soft tissue massage etc too. </span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Typically if the muscle has an EMG signal and the client has positive test (and it improves by doing anti spasms) then it’s likely to be in spasm.  If the test result does not change after the anti spasm then the chances are that it does not have an EMG signal and is then simply tight or fibrotic. You can then select your intervention accordingly.</span>

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<b>Why Does It Happen?</b>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Usually, because it’s trying to protect something (a joint or nerve perhaps) or it’s being loaded from another biomechanical problem remote from that muscle. Often adaptive shortening caused by adapting to inactivity, lack of use through the full range, poor posture or poor technique. </span>

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<b>How can we reduce Muscle Spasm?</b>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Ribot-Ciscar has established that a muscle relaxes maximally after it has been contracted submaximally and for a prolonged period. He and Jiri Dvorak (FIFA Chief Medical Officer, also senior Editor of British Journal of Sports Medicine) refer to it as Post Contraction Sensory Discharge. </span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">So, in other words, the anti-spasm exercises allow the muscle to lengthen easier after the ‘contraction’ and consequently improves the function of the muscle. </span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">This technique, also known as a muscle energy technique (MET), is a great way to provide your clients with a way that they can help themselves so they’re don’t become reliant on their coach, therapist or trainer. It’s something to empower them to contribute to improving their own problems between sessions with you and the responsibility. </span>

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<b>The Anti-Spasm Technique</b>

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<span style="font-weight: 400;">Consider the muscle you would like to release, let’s take pec minor as an example, then look at its attachments - 3rd-5th ribs and coracoid process. Consider its main action - protraction (it will also aid scapular depression but let’s keep it simple for now). Take the muscles attachments away from each other into retraction, making sure you stop before the point of stretching it. Now place resistance onto the shoulder with the opposite hand or using a door frame and then press the shoulder into protraction isometrically with ONLY 20% effort and hold for 20 seconds. Repeat this 4 times and then repeat periodically throughout the day. </span>

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<span style="font-weight: 400;">The less we change our lifestyles the longer we will need to do this but we can also use strength work to specifically address this issue and reduce the chances of the problem recurring. </span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Antagonist strength training is a simple, logical and effective method to do this and this will be discussed in a future Juicemail!</span>

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<span style="font-weight: 400;">Would you like to learn how to manually screen for pec minor muscle spasm?</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Join us for the full <a href="https://biomechanicseducation.clickfunnels.com/biomechanics-coach" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Biomechanics Coach™ Diploma</a> starting Feb 2018</span>