Arthro-CAN-matics
This branch of mechanics describes the motion of a body without regard to the forces or torques that produce them.
What is Kinematics?
According to the Reiman & Lorenz clinical guidelines, if a physical therapist’s primary treatment goal for a patient is basic muscle strength and power, they should prescribe a repetition range within these strict parameters.
What is 0 to 6 repetitions?
This clinical term refers to the ability of a multi-joint muscle to elongate or lengthen, which is uniquely distinct from joint mobility.
What is Flexibility?
Unlike natural physiological muscle contractions which recruit slow-twitch Type I fibers first asynchronously, neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) recruits this fiber type first in a synchronous fashion.
What are fast-twitch Type II fibers?
According to the systematic review by Cheatham et al. (2015), self-myofascial release (SMR) tools like foam rollers or roller massagers can acutely improve this biometric without causing a structural decrease in subsequent muscle performance.
What is joint range of motion (ROM)?
According to the convex-concave rules, when a convex joint surface moves on a fixed concave surface, the roll and slide occur in this relative direction.
What is the opposite direction?
This acute, life-threatening adverse reaction to resistance training results from severe muscle damage—often triggered by heavy eccentric training paired with dehydration—and presents with severe bilateral soreness and dark, Coca-Cola colored urine.
What is Acute Exertional Rhabdomyolysis?
This modern four-letter acronym outlines a comprehensive warm-up approach designed to maximize performance, standing for Raise, Activate, Mobilize, and Potentiate.
What is the RAMP model?
Russian stimulation utilizes a polyphasic alternating current packaged with this exact high-frequency carrier signal, designed to decrease skin impedance and achieve deeper muscle penetration.
What is 2500 Hertz (Hz)?
This fundamental neurophysiologic theory of massage suggests that stimulating large-diameter afferent nerve fibers (such as cutaneous mechanoreceptors) effectively blocks the transmission of noxious signals traveling along small-diameter nerve fibers in the spinal cord.
What is the Gate Control Theory of Pain?
This specific kinetic concept describes a progressive, time-dependent deformation of connective tissue when subjected to a constant, sustained load over time.
What is Creep?
During a patient's lifespan development, training-induced strength gains occur equally across genders during the pre-adolescent phase without evidence of this structural muscle adaptation, which does not begin to take place until the onset of puberty.
What is Hypertrophy?
This specific form of stretching utilizes a bouncing movement where a force is driven beyond the normal range of motion using muscles as springs, which is explicitly noted as non-beneficial and potentially harmful.
What is Ballistic stretching?
To optimize muscle strengthening using NMES on an uninjured extremity, the amplitude of the contraction should be turned up to reach at least this percentage of the patient's Maximum Voluntary Isometric Contraction (MVIC).
What is greater than 50% (>50% MVIC)? (Injured requires >10%).
In the clinical practice guidelines outlined by Cheatham, Baker, and Kreiswirth, clinicians are warned that while a localized inflammatory response is a normal treatment reaction to IASTM, causing massive, visible bruising breaks these best-practice hygiene and safety standards.
What are petechiae?
To minimize the effects of active insufficiency while attempting to perform active knee extension, you should place the hip joint in this specific positional state.
What is an extended position? (Placing the hip in extension lengthens the rectus femoris proximally, preventing it from becoming excessively shortened as it extends the knee).
When prescribing isometric stabilization exercises, this is the standard duration range for single muscle holds, which helps to optimize static strength and joint safety.
What is 6 to 10 seconds?
A joint contracture is named according to this specific clinical rule of nomenclature.
What is the action of the shortened muscle? (e.g., tight elbow flexors that prevent full extension are named an elbow flexion contracture).
Blood flow restriction (BFR) exercise creates a unique environment for muscle hypertrophy at low loads by combining low mechanical tension with a massive amount of this local physiological stress.
What is Metabolic stress?
This massage technique features pressure application over specific localized areas of increased electrochemical activity with the goal of reducing localized pain and neuromuscular tone.
What is Trigger Point Massage (or Acupressure)?
While a larger physiological cross-sectional area (PCSA) drives maximal muscle force production, this structural property of a muscle fiber primarily influences contraction velocity and total joint excursion rather than peak force.
What is fiber length? (Fibers in series favor motion/velocity; fibers in parallel favor force).
While absolute muscle strength is structurally greater in adult males than adult females due to larger muscle mass, this specific type of comparison reveals that strength-to-mass ratios are virtually identical between genders.
What is Relative strength?
While traditional physical therapy models attribute the immediate effectiveness of Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation (PNF) stretching to reciprocal inhibition, modern scientific literature suggests it is actually mediated by this neural mechanism.
What is sensorimotor processing (or increased stretch tolerance)?
When applying artificial electrical stimulation to a patient's motor nerve, action potentials propagate in both directions. The propagation that travels in the opposite direction of normal physiologic flow (e.g., traveling distal-to-proximal in a motor nerve) is called this.
What is Antidromic propagation?
Unlike reflexive Swedish techniques, this specific form of soft tissue massage focuses on relieving the abnormal grip and structural binding of the surrounding connective web rather than the individual muscles themselves.
What is Myofascial Release?