LEARN HOW NEUROMUSCULAR THERAPY (NMT) CAN HELP YOU
NMT helps you get out of pain because it mitigates the causes of soft-tissue pain.
Vladimir Janda, MD.(1923-2002), a Czech neurologist and physiatrist, was an expert in musculoskeletal pain syndromes. He helped to develop the now increasingly popular philosophy of “manual medicine,” a European perspective on the relationship between bodily form and function. He defined characteristic muscular imbalance patterns that lead to chronic pain and disability.
The following figures show Janda’s model for understanding the most common postural distortions. These models illustrate the relationship between muscular “pairs,” and the potent role they play in producing neuromuscular dysfunction and pain.
As a simplified example, in the Upper Crossed Model, the muscles in the chest and front of the neck are too tight, whereas the muscles between the shoulder blades and the back of the shoulders are lacking in tone or are “over stretched.” The Lower Crossed Model shows abdominals and gluteals as lacking tone, with the muscles on the fronts of the thighs and the low back being overly tight (or “short”).
We utilize these models in our practice of NMT to restore our clients to postural balance, which in turn greatly reduces or entirely eliminates most soft-tissue pain syndromes. You might be able to recognize yourself or your office neighbor in these schematics. If so, understand that the postural deviations you are noticing are the prescription for pain in the future, if the pain is not already manifest.