Janda
Joe asked the following question: Has this Janda stuff ever been put through the scientific method??? To my knowledge it has not. In my opinion Janda has been misinterpreted. His work is being used to justify a bunch of mumbo jumbo that is far removed from anything he wrote. Several years ago I researched his work quite thoroughly. There was (may still be) a compendium of his writing that was quite extensive. I came to different conclusion than the NASM crowd. Basically what Janda does is give a context to view movement and possibly analyze the source of any dysfunction. He identified three common syndromes 1) Upper Crossed 2) Lower Crossed and 3) Pronation Distortion. The problem is that if you go looking for those syndromes you will find them. Then what? Virtually every swimmer and thrower has some upper crossed syndrome. Do we keep them from swimming? Absolutely not! That posture is partially an adaptive response to their training. It can be simply addressed by daily attention to remedial work that stretch the
The take home point for me on reviewing his writings was very simple. In certain activities there are muscles that chronically shorten due to the manner in which they are used. Sometimes you have to lengthen them and sometimes you have strengthen them. It really depends on the individual and the activity they are involved in. More stretching is not the answer. Once again stretching is part of the bigger picture of understanding the movements that cause the tightness.
Hope this helps clarify things a bit. I know I restated my bias, but we must see the forest for the trees. I would be interested in comments from other people that have studied Janda’s work.
posted by Vern Gambetta @ 4/04/2006 08:31:00 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Vern,
Well said.
I have not read Janda well. I have seen others use his work in various ways, but should read about his work more to get a better feel for it.
It does seem to me that to often folks feel they identified a postural problem and in reality are just looking at a person who is very focused on a given activity. As you said, almost any swimmer or thrower has some degree of "upper crossed".
Could just be they are fine, and well adapted to there activity.
Here is an example. Middle aged (late 40's) triathlete, female, recreational competitor. Has participated in triathlon for 5-7 years and run or exercised consistently for her whole life. has had no injury history. Sprained an ankle last fall hiking, and was still having some trouble around new years. Refered out to Orthopedist, they felt she had a leg length discrepency and suggested 2 gel inserts in the shoe of the "short" leg to solve that problem. She used the advice and suddenly has knee and lower back problems.
Now, they could be from her changing a movement pattern from the original sprain. Could be coincidence. Could be that attempting to fix something that was well adapted to (40+ years of living with one leg a little shorter) caused other problems.
And that is the issue I have with attempting postural adjustment. It seems like there is some "ideal posture" folks should strive for via some marketable method and very little attention paid to who the athlete actually is.
The case above, it is entirely likely that it was coincidence or something else all together. I laid it out just to get that point out. The focus should be on the athlete and where they have been, are and want to go... Then apply the appropriate tools available and help (PT, ATC, Doc, Massage, Other coaches, etc) available to help the individual.
Thanks for getting me thinking today!
The NASM uses a prone leg extension test to determine if "synergistic dominance" of the hamstrings over the glutes is occurring. With your touch you determine if the muscles are firing in a predetermined correct pattern, or not. I'm not sure if Janda himself invented the test, or one of his exponents.
This technique was put through a good double blind study in the Feb.'04 edition of "musculoskeletal disorders". The conclusion was: "A consistent pattern of activation was not found. Variability was seen across subjects. These findings suggest the PLE is not sufficient for a diagnostic test due to the notable physiological variation. An overlap between normal and potentially abnormal activation patterns may exist."
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