Creating Change

Change is sweet... but often takes time.

I have been working with a 40 year old female climber for four weeks now (yes, I realize the photos are of me, and not of a female!). She came in to me with neck pain, and extremely limited neck range of motion.  Although our treatments focused on a number of limitations including hip mobility, thoracic spine mobility and control, neck mobility and control and scapular mobility and control, we decided that two tests would be our most relevant measurable outcome measures: 1) Chin to Clavicles and 2) Chin to Chest. 

Give it a try: You should be able to easily touch your chin to your chest and to your clavicles.

These two tests, when measured from a tall standing posture, take into account the mobility all of our posterior cervical muscles, our thoracic paraspinals, and our ability to attain full flexion of the cervical and upper thoracic vertebrae. My client was negative 4 cm from the chest and 5cm from each of the clavicles.

Touch down: My client was highly motivated to create change, and today it paid off!  Over four weeks, 10 treatments and daily home exercises, she finally succeeded on passing both tests. She can’t remember when last she had this amount of neck mobility... but it was certainly not for the last 20 years.  Also, and more importantly, she no longer experiences neck pain.

For generalization sake, this took 1 month of hard work, at least a couple dozen hours of hard work at home and in clinic, and required changing daily postural and movement habits.

While 1 month may seem like a long time, adaptation takes time without causing injury. I honestly would have been pleased with 2 months.

What areas of your body are you trying to change?!