On 10/8/00, Anna Lee<[log in to unmask]> writes:

<< I think comparing Olympic weightlifters with people with back pain is

spurious. They are like chalk and cheese. The emphasis on TrA with back pain

sufferers is more in the line of motor retraining/control.   Weightifters are

beyond that and have excellent motor control, proprioception etc, presumably

developed over the years of training  from dedicated coaches like you so

their TrAs would work automatically.>>

***  A few comments and questions:

1.  Classifying all forms and aetiologies of back pain under the same 
umbrella is equally spurious.  

2.  Overemphasis on 'educating' one isolated muscle as the dominant treatment 
modality is always very dubious.

3.  If weightlifters appear to automatically utilise TrA very efficiently, 
does this not suggest that their methods of enhancing stabilisation may as 
equally valid as methods of isolated TrA 'education'?  Competent lifting 
skills may be taught in the same time as that usually used to teach acc
eptable TrA functioning.

4.  Why are TrA methods of addressing back pain beginning to assume such 
evangelistic proportions?

5.  Are TrA methods definitely superior to most other methods of addressing 
back pain?

6.  How does one non-invasively check for TrA 'miseducation' or 'laziness' 
during full ranges of dynamic or ballistic 'functional' movement (such as 
running, lifting and jumping)? 

7.  Why do some cases of back pain, even among those with apparently 'weak' 
or 'lazy' TrA muscles, spontaneously resolve themselves without repeatedly 
recurring?

8.   TrA and the internal obliques are innervated by the same nerves (L1 and 
ventral branches of T7-T12), plus the other muscles of the abdomen are all 
innervated by many of the same thoracic spinal nerves, so are we entirely 
justified in assuming that methods of "TrA activation" do not implicate 
actions of other abdominal muscles?  One of the same nerves which innervates 
psoas also innervates TrA, namely L1, so does this also suggest that there 
may also be some psoas involvement?  Remember that the relationship between 
neural activity and motor output is not linear, so that even slight changes 
in one system may cause marked changes in other systems (In an earlier letter 
I referred to the possible functioning of nonlinear dynamics or dissipative 
structures in the cause and treatment of back pain).

Dr Mel C Siff
Denver, USA
http://www.egroups.com/group/supertraining



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