Whatever movement you may make, whether is it turning from side to side, bending forward, leaning back, walking or even raising your arms, part of my evaluation is to make sure that all the joints involved in the movement are involved and that the muscles properly support the joints while they move.
For example, something as simple as raising your arms to the side, involves your shoulder joint, the ability of the shoulder blade to slide smoothly over the back of the ribs, the joints at each end of the collar bone and joints in your upper back, all moving in a peticular sequence, with their respective muscles supporting a controlled movement throughout. The joints must also be in a neutral position for the movement to properly occur.
This is one example of how I approach pain occurring due to dysfunction during a multi-joint functional movement from the aspect of joint movement, muscle strength, possible connective tissue involvement that can affect balance and retraining the brain to fire the muscles at the proper times. My previous post on “The Golden Rule of Posture” is a great way to start to establish a balanced body that can help to improve all sorts of movement.
