Erik: So, we talked about Matt's key lesion - every time you have a problem with the upper
cervical complex: O-A, A-A, Occipitalalan joint, altas-axis joint, cranio-cervical junction - you
gotta deal with that first. The goal of Myoskeletal Alignment is to level the sacral base
and to get good alignment up here. Paul: Right. Brother and sister relationship, always remember
that. If you don't get anything else done in your session just try to level the head and
the tail. You'll get a lot of good results with that. Erik: So, when we looked at Matt - we found
that he has... tuck your chin, Matt... as we do this, we're gliding the occiput on the atlas.
And, so what we want to see is we want to see those condyles glide nice and smoothly and
them have a bunch of double chins. So that's what we're seeing here. His really nice O-A.
But what he has a problem with... both sides of O-A are good - but what he has a problem with
is atlas-axis. So, when I raise him up, flex him to 45 degrees
at least. It locks through the nuchal ligament, the typical cervical vertebra. Paul: Right,
and that's real important, because I see this technique done wrong all the time. It's a very,
very specific technique and you have to make sure those typical vertebra are locked out at 45,
if they're hypermobile you may have to take them a little bit higher. So, in this technique,
notice his grip. Erik, go ahead and show them your grip. Erik: Sometimes I use my third hand
if it's a heavy head, or if I want to make sure that I am stabilizing enough. They got to keep
the chin tucked, they can't have any trick movements when they move side to side. So,
we got to make sure that we don't let the head drop. It has to have a full axis,
as if there's a pole going straight through the cranium and down into the cervical spine. And you
rotate around that axis. So, here's what we found - we found that when Matt rotated left... Paul:
He has a nice 45. Erik: Sometimes we want them to help with this by turning their eyes, because
sometimes people don't want to give up control of their head and neck, so one of the ways that you
can help is asking them to actually turn their eyes which fires the optic nerve, optic nerve
helps fire the suboccipital - so turn your eyes to the left, Matt. As he turns his eyes to the left,
we see that that glide is very very nice. 45 degrees in each direction is all we want.
Ok, so I'm keeping the chin tucked, now open your eyes and look to the right, as far as you can.
We go... aaand... that's it. He had a hard barrier, bone-on-bone barrier.
Atlas axis barrier. Bumped into the barrier, felt sterno-collidal-mastoid on the left, popped into
this finger right here. That, or more commonly what you're going to see is the chin would want
to come out of flexion. We don't want to let that chin come out. So, here we go. We're going to
take him to the barrier, I'm going to back off to the inner-barrier zone, work from there, keep his
chin tucked, ask him to turn his eyes as far to the right as possible, I am going to follow him.
That's all it was, I don't want to bulldoze past the barrier. Now I want you to turn your
eyes to the left and your head to the left, as far as possible. Gently. Two - good. Three -
Four - Five. And eyes to the right. Paul: Notice how he's got his elbows out right here,
too. You get those elbows out, keeps them in that axis that we're talking about. Like that pole's
going through his head. It's real easy when you get your elbows out, because you get to rotate
the whole head in the same plane. Erik: Right. Using your bodyweight. Using your own body. Just
rotating your own body. Ok, so, I'm backing off the inner-barrier zone. Turn your eyes to
the left and gently turn your head to the left - Two - your athletes don't want to turn too hard,
if they turn too hard just use the eye movements. Three - Four - Five. Eyes to the right.
Keeping the chin tucked. Look at that. Paul: Very good. Look at that. Nice. Erik: So now, we see
nice fluid motion, back and forth, back and forth, we clear up that lesion. Now,
we're not doing - this is not joint work. This is suboccipital. What's that muscle that's preventing
this, Paul? Paul: Inferior oblique. Erik: Inferior oblique. Inferior oblique is a muscle commonly
overlooked and less appreciated muscle in the suboccipital group. Ties atlas to axis. ???? Ok,
so when we get there we're just going to decompress, decompress, make them feel good.