Muscles In Sync
Muscle of the Month: Biceps
January 26, 2013 | 
Author Does the Biceps muscle remind you of Popeye? If you eat enough spinach, it will get big:)
Aside from having great guns 
the bicep muscle can surprisingly cause elbow and shoulder pain when it becomes too short.
The long head of the biceps pulls on the shoulder and the short head pulls on the shoulder blade, and when it is tight it can pull the shoulder forward causing the shoulder bone to slip forward a little, out of alignment. 
This condition is called "anterior humeral glide syndrome: and can have the side effect of causing impingement and pain in the rotator cuff.
Tight biceps can also cause tennis elbow by straining and pulling the forearm into pronation if it is too tight.
So Stretch those biceps!
Posted in Lacey, Lower Back Pain, Muscles In Sync, Olympia, Physical Therapy, Shoulder Pain, Surgery, Thurston County, Tumwater, Yelm | 
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Muscle of the Week: Peroneus Longus pain masking as plantarfasciitis
The peroneus muscles are on the outside of the lower leg and ankle and usually get strained when the ankle gets sprained. This makes sense to most people because the tendons run so close to the outside of the ankle.
But…..the peroneus longus tendon crosses UNDER the foot after running along side the ankle bone to help support the arch. It attaches in the middle of the arch on the bottom side.
Here is a picture of the bottom of the foot:
When the peroneus longus tendon insertion starts to pull and get irritated, it can feel like plantarfasciitis and be confusing. However, the fix is usually the same, stretch your Achilles and plantarfascia and strengthen the side to side muscles as well as get manual therapy. Sometimes orthotics help too. Your physical therapist is particularly well trained to fix this condition.
Why are some people knocked knee-ed on one side?
Here is an interesting case of a patient who injured her right knee with a cartilage tear about 15 months ago.
Her hip responded to the right knee injury by twisting in at the thigh and out at the shin. The angle between the upper leg and lower leg is about 25 degrees, and on the left, her normal leg is about 10 degrees.
After one treatment, and some home exercises her knee looked like this:
If you are interested in knee rehabilitation, here is a link
http://www.patellofemoral.org/pfoe/PDFs/Case_study_Mascal_Landers_Powers.pdf
Also a link to last week's blog post:
http://comstockpt.com/2012/05/29/surprising-exercise-kneecap-pain-hip-rotation/
Posted in Exercise Programs, Hip pain, Joint Pain, Knee pain, Lacey, Muscles In Sync, Olympia, Physical Therapy, Rehabilitation, Research | 
Tags: alignment, body mechanics, injury, knee, kneecap, lacey, olympia | 1 Comment »
Headaches? Try this little exercise {Olympia, Wa}
Did you every have whiplash? Did you fall off your bike as a kid and hit you chin on the ground? (I fell head first off my bike and knocked out both front teeth). If you have had any of these happen to you, likely you have headaches and neck pain. A simple exercise you can do to help with headaches is to do this:
1) lay on your back and put a rolled hand towel under your neck and bend up your knees.
2) nod your chin 1/4th of an inch like you are saying "yes" and hold.
3) do 10. slowly build up your hold to 5 seconds, then 10 seconds.
Posted in Core Muscles, Lacey, Olympia, Prevention, Rehabilitation, Tumwater, Uncategorized, Upper Back Pain | Tags: headache, lacey wa, neck pain, olympia wa, strengthen, stretching | No Comments »
What is the best way to strengthen the core? Ball exercises? Sit ups? NO! ULTRASOUND!
Want to strengthen your "core"? Will Pilates, yoga, ball exercises or crunches do the job? Yes if you have NEVER had back or abdominal painl IF you have had back pain, think again!
Your deepest "core" muscles will be slow to contract soon enough to protect your back when you lift, kick or reach for something. What to do? Visit a physical therapist that has a diagnostic ultrasound machine that can view your deepest "core muscles" (transverse abdominus).
Here is a video of viewing the deepest core:
trasnverse abdominus ultrasound
Part of the "core" is also the pelvic floor. If you have stress incontinence, the ultrasound machine can be used to view the pelvic floor muscles to help you recover your strength. Here is a video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAw70KlpwLM
We have diagnostic ultraosund at Comstock Physical Therapy. Come on in to get YOUR core assessed!