Week 8

Hello everybody.

            Now that I am entering the final week of my internship, I would like to evaluate the progress I’ve made in my research from beginning to end. My question going into the project was, “What physical therapy methods at Synergy make the treatment advantageous over others?”

After working there for several weeks, I have a few answers that make Synergy unique in its approach.

            The first method I learned occurs in the evaluation stage of a patient. When a patient comes in with an injury, the job of the therapist is not to just discover more about the injury, but what caused the injury. As seen in Allan, the actual root problem to a calf tear was poor ankle joint movement. We have to treat all weaknesses in the kinetic chains of movement throughout the body to ensure health. If one muscle is injured, its counterpart is probably either injured or weak.

            The second method involves releasing tensions with aggressive manual therapy. Often, injuries to a muscle will force the muscle’s tendon or neighboring muscles to pick up the slack. This causes scar tissue buildup and tightness, as tightness gives the muscle/tendon more leverage and simulated strength. The body relies on these compensations to avoid hurting the injury further. Everything around the injury protects it in these unhealthy manners. It takes a great deal of effort to work out the knots formed from long-term habits. But the re-injuring of the area allows for us to prevent the body’s inclination to protect it at all costs, and instead we can heal the body the optimal way. When the tissue is broken down, the blood vessels regenerate in the area, allowing for healthy muscle growth. Instead of building on tightness, we can actually make the muscles stronger from scratch.

            The third method is teaching what muscles to work during activity and in what situations. This is accomplished by giving the patients exercises that isolate muscles in a strategic manner. The most prominent example would be assigning step-ups to a patient with poor gluteus activation. It is inefficient to avoid a muscle as big as the gluteus when walking, yet most people put unnecessary strain on the rest of their leg by doing so. This phase of treatment is also largely neuromuscular regeneration, teaching the muscles to collaborate with the body and mind.

            There are of course many other details that go into Vincent’s methods, but these are the basic themes he works from. It is fascinating to learn that so many assumptions are completely wrong. A lot of the logic is counter-intuitive. Every patient is a different puzzle. I just enjoy trying to figure out what Vincent’s answer is going to be for every problem we encounter.