Q&A with Tom: Spinning Incident

A follower writes: 

I’m an LMT for many years and have been into myofascial release since before it had a name. I’ve finally started watching your videos about the anatomy trains and it is so wonderful to see the science behind my intuition.

I have a client who, until 10 years ago, was all about being super physical and always working out and taking wonderful care of herself. She was taking an intense spin class and felt that she was over doing it, but continued to over due it until one day, when she got off of the bike, her whole pelvic cradle was basically useless. When she walked, her left leg seems to sort of go behind her center and had no way to support her weight. It was as if the nerves no longer innervated the muscles. She has been to all kinds of different doctors, acupuncturists, massage therapists, PTs, and no one could help her or even figure out what was wrong.

When I met her a few months ago, the first thing I thought of was to address the muscles right at ground zero. My theory is that the muscles in the groin area were putting the squeeze on the nerves responsible for the muscles in charge of stabilizing her pelvic stability. That’s the best way I can describe what I see. My treatments have been helping and there is improvement slowly but surely. Very slowly.

Her complaints change as she improves. She realizes now that her digestion problem is related. I could go on and on. Early on her arms were incredibly tender and working on them improved her whole system.

Have you ever seen this before?

Thank you for your time and attention. I very much appreciate you and I think the work you are into is revolutionary!


Tom replies:
Thanks for the kind words, and sounds like you’re doing great work.

I cannot comment on your client without a hands-on assessment, but with that proviso:

Over-spinning is one of my bugaboos. The legs were not evolved to move that fast without loading. The fact that the weight is on the pelvis while the legs revolve quickly is only possible on a bike, so the idea of a stationary bike is head-scratchingly perverse in the first place. In a moving bike, the legs are loaded – not in a walking or running way, which have millions of years of evolutionary testing, but at least loaded similarly – whereas spinning is just nonsensical in evolutionary, ‘Paleo’ terms.

spinning

That said, it’s a done deal for your client. Again, without being specific to them, the femoral near-vascular bundle in the groin is definitely a place to start – and look to Barrall’s Visceral Manipulation to help you here – it’s not just muscles or myofascia. But also consider all that sitting – the sciatic nerve bundle and the deep lateral rotators may have been irritated or damaged by the wiggling weight on the small seat. Check the sacral position too.

rs1801_body3-3-4