Good morning. Happy Monday. I have neuro coffee in hand and it is perfect. All right. Happy Monday. Coming off a very strong weekend. Very busy going to dig straight into Q&A. This is with Christian. Christian had a little bit of a neck issue that he wanted to discuss on the last Coffee and Coaches Conference call. We're happy to do that on occasion, especially when it leads us into a really good discussion. So in this case, This brought us to some lower cervical mechanics. One of the things we need to understand about the cervical spine is that the mechanics throughout the cervical spine are not the same, even though they are often expressed as being the same, especially when they talk about rotations and side bends and things like that and we don't talk about that. It's all rotation under these circumstances. It's just how is it going to rotate based on the shape of the facet joints, which is different between the upper and the lower cervical spine. So when I'm talking about upper in this case, we're talking about like the C3-4 level compared to the C6-7 level. They are not the same. So we have to appreciate that fact because it is going to influence our decisions. So we break those mechanics down And we actually give Christian some suggestions and some strategy as to how to approach this, to get this lower cervical spine to turn appropriately and to alleviate the symptoms. Got some feedback from them and that actually it's already better. So we are definitely on the right track. So thank you Christian for your question and leading us in this direction. By the way, go to the YouTube channel. There is a video already up there discussing some of these lower cervical mechanics that you might find helpful. Everybody have an outstanding Monday, and I will see you tomorrow.

Good morning. I'm doing well. My question of the day is more personal and relates to the past couple of weeks. While sleeping well and performing exercises and cross-connects, I woke up with extremely limited left side bending of my head, resembling a closing facet restriction. I've worked on improving it and am about 80-85% better, as I could barely turn my head left and couldn't side bend left at all. This recurred after driving to Tennessee and back. I'd like to examine the cervical mechanics of facet opening and closing, how that relates to your model, and how muscle energy techniques (METs) connect to your model.

What's not a muscle energy technique?

Well, I guess when I think of muscle, I guess everything's a muscle energy technique.

Yeah, it is. It's kind of one of those vague little things that they go, oh, this is special. It's not special.

Got it, got it.

Okay, so, let's just talk about the representation that you were dealing with first. Number one, clearly you have to stay out of Tennessee because it's not good for your neck. When you said you were driving to Tennessee, where'd you drive from?

Florida, mid Florida or Orlando.

If you can't turn the lower cervical spine to the left, that's the limitation. So you go, 'Oh, it hurts.' And people come in, they're really good at that too. They go, 'Yeah, it's right there.' It's the one finger test. So under that circumstance, the inability to turn in that direction would be a lack of expansion.

Where? On the left posterior lower cervical.

Left posterior lower cervical, which would be related to another area, upper dorsal rostrum.

Yeah.

There you go. Okay. So that area has to expand to have a space to turn into, doesn't it?

Exactly.

Okay. And so, in the language that you were using, you were talking about, what was it, a closed facet or something?

Yeah. Closing restriction. So that, is that a Mulligan thing? The closed restriction. Is that Mulligan? Yes, I guess more like let's talk about it. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. So that would be the description. That's what's going on—you have muscle activity creating a compressive strategy that pushes that side into an IR representation. IR being down and forward in that direction. So everything's pushing you this way, and you can't turn that way. Right. So you create upper thoracic expansion, which gives you lower cervical ER, which allows you to turn your head to the left in the lower cervical spine anyway. Got it.

And then I guess as we work our way up towards it, the mechanics are a little different when we talk about when we get into side bending. I wanted to think a little bit about, talk a little bit about what happens when we side bend and then get that restriction. I guess it would be a little bit higher up the chain with the side bend.

Right. So again, the facets of the cervical spine in school and they teach you this little thingy here? Yes. They say that the facets are on this angle and the side bends and the rotations are the same. You know that part?

Got it.

Ian, you're doing Frieberg's laws, right? It's side bending and rotation to the same side in the cervical spine. Is that right? Yes, sir. Okay. I thought so. Yeah. They're not the same shape though. The facets are not the same shape. So if you look at C3-4 and you compare that to C6-7, the facets are not the same shape. In fact, the concave to convex nature of those facets is actually different, which is why the lower cervical spine has to ER to create a rotation in that direction. And then the upper cervical spine is actually gonna look a little bit different. It's gonna be more of like that's what you're calling a side bend. It's not a side bend. It's all rotation, but understand that the rotations are created a little bit differently.

Got it.

However, you still have the compression on that side that's going to create the limitation. So what you're talking about is creating expansion from upper DR to lower cervical spine and then moving up the cervical spine under that circumstance. So you still have to get expansion on that side. Otherwise, you will not be able to turn in that direction. Good morning. Happy Tuesday. I have neuro coffee in hand and it is perfect. All right. Hey, very busy Tuesday coming up. We're gonna dig straight into this Q&A. This is with Max. This is a great little video. Kind of warms my heart. Max is a guy that's been working with my model for quite some time, getting very good at it, understands principles. What you don't see in this video, we were discussing a right foot contact cross connect and this led us into some other programming issues, moving into some split squad activities that would be coherent with the initial intention of the right foot contact cross connect. And I think that this is great because I think a lot of people create their own interference in their programming as they're doing some things that appear to be random or their sequencing is not effective to produce the desired outcome. And again, they're just getting in their own way and then wondering why they don't see the progress that they're intending. And I think Max is really on point. He's really starting to understand this and he's actually evolving some really good strategy in his programming. So I think that, again, if this video is representative of anything, it is that we need to be more coherent with our programming to produce the desired intention. So thank you, Max, for this video. Everybody have an outstanding Tuesday and I'll see you tomorrow.

I remember when we were talking about the exercise similarity between a rack split squat and a rack split squat and a suitline cross-connect. When we were talking about the rack split squat, we were talking about an ipsilateral load rack split squat. And that's corresponding to if we're using that right foot supine cross connect, this would be the right foot forward rack. And this just by its very nature of the right foot being forward, that would be a progression of the supine cross connect.

Okay.

And that's when we were talking about the rack split squat, we were talking about an ipsilateral load, rack split squat. And that's corresponding to like, if we're using that right foot supine cross connect, this would be the right foot forward rack. And this just by its very nature of the right foot being forward, that would be a progression of the supine cross connect.

Yeah, so it would be coherent with what you're trying to do with the cross connect, wouldn't it?

Yeah. After I get them to come back on the right and then start to make them through a more of a relative motion, um, propulsive series, right?

See, and now you're writing a coherent program.

Yeah. Yeah. Really good. So this is, this would be in the, because when you, when you're doing the, the rack splits by right, you're shifting weight back on the same side, and then to the left. It's kind of coming like that. And with the propulsive sequence of your narrows, that's kind of where the, when you put the foot down, the center of mass goes up and to the left, if I'm on a right, and then it comes back around.