“Let’s work the top today, and ignore the bottom”, I heard my fellow trainer said.
I feel the need to address this. In Scoliosis, the curvature and rotation of the spine affects the hip, neck and legs. Like the photo below, the spine rotates and shifts to compensate for the top and bottom segments. Hence, being lazy and simply trying to fix the top areas while disregarding the bottom areas is a definite NO-NO to me.
Just like the leaning tower of Pisa, in order to reduce the inclination, the engineers have to extract soil from the North (tower is leaning towards the South) and pull the tower towards the North. These adjustments were repeated in 41 different locations over several years.
Here’s an interesting video of the history and engineering behind the Leaning Tower of Pisa, if you are interested.
This goes on to tell us that we have to treat our scoliosis curves the same way as the engineers have worked on the tower. De-rotate and Center the spine in ALL locations over and over again.
Just focusing on the top and ignoring the bottom is oversimplifying Scoliosis curvature, and could possibly aggravating the condition of your student.
Our bodies are full of mystery but these riddles are not that difficult to crack if we have the proper knowledge backed by the hard work and research by scientists, doctors, and practitioners. As long as we keep educating and re-educating (yes, some things we’ve learnt in the past may not be accurate anymore), our students will benefit from our hard work too. Let’s work hard together to benefit this under-represented community together. 🍃
If you have any questions, feel free to email me at coachjayjasmine@gmail.com and I’ll make sure to answer you. 🙂
Sources:
Photo: Pilatesintel.com
Video: https://youtu.be/HFqf6aKdOC0
