Written by Kento Kamiyama PT, DPT
A lot has happened recently and I apologize for the little hiatus. Lots of events fell on top of each other and made it difficult for me to write a blog post. Since I don’t have one solid topic for one post , I’m going to formulate a random thoughts blog for today that will include…yes random thoughts that may include clinical, personal and just plain experience.
Before I start, I want to make sure I thank and give gratitude to friends and family the past 4~6 weeks for understanding and helping us. My wife recently fell and broke her elbow needing surgery. Since she’s not able to lift much weight like holding our son, I’ve been a little busy around the house hold. Its so interesting not being able to use one part of the body can impact our lives so much. With that being said, I can’t thank friends and family enough for supporting us.
I’ve also been receiving private messages from multiple individuals saying they like my blog posts and how they challenge their thought process. I would’ve never expected that to happen and I extremely am grateful to all you readers out there.
- Stuff happens and ask for help when needed.
With all that going on, it was go go go all day everyday. I love being a father, I love my job, I love teaching and I love training. Since I love pretty much everything I do, I was able to keep going, until at a certain point my body started to give. As I knew my body was starting to give, I realized I needed extra help. I’m quite careful with my diet, training and my daily regimen but things started to slip with lack of sleep and being non-stop. This is when I asked for help from an amazing herbalist/acupuncturist Anna Folckomer. She was very insightful on what things I should be taking and what to avoid. I seriously enjoyed how she bridged the Western and Eastern medicine in a educational way that was easy for me to understand. Get assessed and it will help out tremendously.
2. Teaching and relearning Anatomy continues to get better.
Not only did I start teaching seminars starting this summer, I also started teaching for Seton Hall’s Physical Therapy Program in Gross Anatomy and Palpation starting in the Fall. Not only is going back to see the body in a 3 dimensional fashion makes you look at the body completely differently, it assists you tremendously clinically due to a deeper understanding of the anatomy. The little pearls I receive from the anatomist is amazing. For example, not everyone’s sciatic nerve splits into the tibial and common peroneal nerve close to the knee. Depending on the individual, it splits pretty close to the hip even close to the ischial tuberosity!
3. PRI Cervical Revolution: Jaw/Teeth orientation is crucial for neutrality
I will be writing up a course review soon since things are finally starting to settle down now since my wife can move her elbow a little more. In one sentence, Ron Hruska is a genius from Mars. The way he thinks is out of this world. I’m quite certain he took me to Mars and back and somehow I came back smarter. Cervical revolution highly focused on how important having a cervical lordosis, good TMJ, good teeth contact (specifically 1st and 2nd molar) is to the nervous system.
4. Consistency is king
Recently I finished reading the book called Unmarketing. It was a book on social media marketing. Since I am quite terrible with social media marketing, this book was great. It emphasized the importance of engaging with your followers (which I need to work on) as well as staying consistent as two big factors for social media success. I also believe consistency is key to many other things such as learning a new technique, system or sustainable business. Its when you are consistent, you start to see the things you couldn’t see unless you practiced/understood/experienced it.
5. Fancy techniques are great, but never forget the basics
This is a great quote from my mentor and friend Dr. Kathy Dooley on her blog post on the 36 things she learned at age 36. There are so many wisdoms here I love it. You may have all these fancy techniques but prime focus should still be on the basics such as improving breathing and walking. As I continue to improve my basics, I realize the better the success rate is with my patients. I used to jump around technique to technique with good results but wasn’t consistent. Without a foundation, the fancy techniques you implement may not have much of an impact or progressive gains.
6. Its good to treat hip compression but also don’t forget to treat decompressed hips
In the past, I treated most hip issues having poor ability to decompress their hips secondary to the high amounts of total hip replacements and arthritic hips I used to see. However, there are times when the anterior capsule of the hip is over stretched and becomes ‘decompressed’. To know when its decompressed, its important to know what tests can be utilized which I will not discuss today. If you do find a decompressed hip, make sure those adductors and Hip IR can start activating to improve stability on that hip
7. Ask WHY then the how and what
This is something I teach in my seminar. I used to often ask how and what the practitioner did to get great results. Sometimes the answer maybe “ART, Mulligans technique, myofascial release”. However, in reality, that wouldn’t really matter unless we know WHY it worked. Once we know the why that is when the how and what becomes very powerful. For example, not all tennis elbows can be solved with Mulligans technique because the cause of it may be different for each individual. Its after multiple failures I realized that I first need to ask why first then go into the how and whats.
Happy Monday!