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Osteopathy & Osteopathic Medicine
History of Osteopathy
Who Should See an Osteopath
High Velocity Low Amplitude (HVLA) Back Treatment
Demonstration of HVLA Back Adjustment
Muscle Energy Techniques & Therapy
Demonstration of Muscle Energy Therapy
Strain Counter Strain Joint Therapy
Demonstration of Counter Strain Joint Therapy
Osteopathic Technique for Soft Tissue Therapy
Demonstration of Osteopathic Technique for Soft Tissue Therapy
Cranial Osteopathy Technique
Demonstration of Cranial Osteopathic Therapy
Facilitated Positional Release Osteopathic Technique
Demonstration of Facilitated Positional Release Osteopathic Technique
Summary: Learn about muscle energy techniques and therapy in this free health video.
Dr. Simcha Shapiro, D.O. is the Director of Listening Hands Institute and a physician trained in the USA at the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine. He...read more
"Hi this is Dr. Simcha Shapiro with Expert Village. Now we're going to talk about a technique called, muscle energy technique. While muscle energy technique extends back to the founder of Osteopathy Dr. Still, it was really developed and put out there in a way so that all the practitioners can use it by Dr. Fred Mitchell, Sr. Not to be confused with his son Dr. Fred Mitchell, Jr. So the technique involves muscle resistance. In order to release restricted muscles and tendons and joints. And so what it would look like is, "Hey Doc, I came in and I can't move my arm past here, I can't straighten my arm out". Okay, so we are going to take the person's arm. We're going to bring it to the place where they can't move it anymore and we're going to have them resist against us in the opposite direction. This is something that might be a little counter intuitive in the opposite direction. And then they're going to relax and we're going to stretch it a little bit more until we come to a place where they can't move. Resist again, relax. And move it again, until its done. Now what this does is this contracts the muscle. And then, as the muscle releases and relaxes it goes in that state of relaxation and we stretch it a bit further. And so you can often get a lot more movement in here. I'm going to talk about it with a rib. Let's say there is a rib that is stuck in the way it moves. And so what I can do is, I can bring the arm up so that the muscle, now, just to where the muscle attaches to that rib, just starts to move that rib. Now I want to move that rib up. So what I'm going to do is fix this end. Because the muscle has two ends. It comes from over here and attaches down on the rib. So if I fix this end, then, when you contract the muscle its going to fix this end. Normally, this end is fixed and so what moves is my arm. So I'm going to do the opposite thing. And I'm going to fix over here, and I'm going to contract against it, and its going to pull up on that rib. And increase the movement in the ribs so that I can free up the rib that wasn't moving properly otherwise."
eHow Article: Muscle Energy Techniques & Therapy
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