Happy Tuesday to You!
It’s very busy in Heaven at the moment – “Heaven” is the name of my office property.
Natalia Mammadova, considered the top Russian volleyball player (and possibly the best women’s volleyball player in the world today) and her trainer (Boris) are here to see me for a three-week rehab/training camp.
Natalia has been challenged with chronic shoulder pain for the past few seasons. I evaluated her in Sweden last year and identified several contributing factors. She needed immediate therapeutic intervention, so I referred her to CHEK Practitioners Joakim and Anna Detner in Ronnaby, Sweden. Joakim was able to give her enough rehabilitation to get her through the season, but with her schedule, he couldn’t complete her rehabilitation.
Here you can see me explaining to Natalia and Boris how anterior capsular laxity of the shoulder results in instability and chronic over-stress on the rotator cuff.
Here you can see me performing a shoulder relocation test. By manually placing the head of the shoulder in a stable position within the joint, I can reassess range of motion, muscle function, and determine if stress on the supportive labrum is still causing pain or dysfunction.
Here you can see me performing my Primal Pattern™ assessment with Natalia. I’m assessing her throw pattern to see how she uses her shoulder in concert with the rest of her body.
As you can see, Natalia is TALL. The metal cross beams above the window panels in my tent (just behind me and above my head) where the roof section begins are 6’6″ tall, so if you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to stand next to a woman over 7 feet tall, here’s your answer.
In the photo above, I am assessing Natalia’s single arm push pattern. Natalia is a natural athlete. She’s got a great sense of humor, though there’s a little lag time between my little jokes and the translation from Boris.
Natalia is fun to work with because she’s full of energy, and is committed to being her best.
Here you can see Boris and I watching carefully as Natalia gets ready to step into her lunge pattern.
Boris, who manages Natalya, is a very cool, well-educated man. He really enjoys the CHEK philosophy of living and conditioning athletes; he has studied my work for many years. He also shares a love of shamanism, so we have plenty to talk about between Natalia, exercise, food, holistic health, nature and metaphysics.
It took me all day yesterday to completely assess Natalia. My approach is truly holistic and requires comprehensive assessment of the function of all key regulatory body-mind systems in the body, as well as a detailed assessment of an individuals body-mind state, or disposition.
Today, I will write Natalia’s initial plan for our time together and we’ll begin this afternoon. I’m essentially rebuilding her from the inside out. She will be doing a lot of breathing, infant development, rhythm training, motor patterning, 4 Doctor training, tai-chi, and of course…lifting stones!
The result will be she will leave here with a re-tuned nervous system and corrected musculo-skelatal imbalances, more strength and overall integrity of her body-mind.
For those of you interested in understanding the shoulder and how it functions with the rest of the body, I share a comprehensive, holistic approach to shoulder rehab and conditioning in my correspondence course titled “Scientific Shoulder Training.”
My intention is to share some of my thoughts regarding movement and body-mind health in my blogs this week, but at the moment, I’m busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest. I’ll do my best to share along the way as I can.
For now, we can all consider the statement, “Life is movement.” Stop moving and you start dying.
I hope you all have a great day and enjoy some form of movement today!
Love and chi,
Paul Chek
