I am writing this article due to a common trend I have been seeing in my practice; more and more patients coming to me after several bouts of unsuccessful  therapy at other practices.  This has prompted me to look into their cases and search for trends  that may be causing this.  Why am I able to get them better, when others  have not?  There are several things I have found that contribute to an  unsuccessful outcome, but when these are addressed, often patients that  have not responded to treatment at other practices are finally able to  get see results and ultimately get better. 

The body is capable of moving through three planes of motion – forward to back, side to side and turning right and left.  Any functional movement is going to be a composite of these planes, yet stretches or exercises are typically performed through just one plane or uni-planar.  Although everyone could benefit from multi-planar (or movement through more than one plane) stretching and training, people who play rotational sports such as golf, tennis, or baseball should pay close attention to exercising in functional movements rather than traditional single plane training.

An important aspect of life is the ability to rotate hips, lumbar spine, thoracic spine, and cervical spine all independent of each other.  If you notice when you walk, your opposite arm and leg should be moving forward with each step.  This creates rotation of the thoracic spine and hips that goes unnoticed most of the time.  The body is incredible at compensating and will ‘make up’ for a loss of rotation by creating extra movement in another area such as the knees or lumbar spine.  As you can imagine, years of additional stress placed on body parts that are not supposed to endure that force, will result in degenerative changes (i.e. arthritis), disc herniations, or other medical problems.