Clinical Core for the Upper Body (eCourse)

This course is the prerequisite to the Clinical Core for the Upper Body in-person course and covers the essential clinical topics, assessments and treatment issues for addressing the most common upper body complaints seen in clinical practice.

You will learn to address the most common types of shoulder, upper back and neck pain by understanding the role of proper scapular positioning, the various muscular sources that can feed the upper body with satellite referral, perpetuating factors for upper body pain, and key treatment modules for the most important muscles in this area. There is a relatively small set of muscles and relationships that set up a high percentage of complaints. This course, along with its associated in-person course, prepares you to design and execute effective treatments for most of the upper body cases that you will see.

Protocols are an extremely valuable resource that we have developed over the years. The practitioner is guided through the key muscles for prominent complaints, and decisions are made at each point about which muscles to treat. We cover “treatment loops,” in which the practitioner visits a set of muscles related by function in an iterative manner until significant tissue change and ROM improvements are achieved. Treatment loops are extremely important, because they incorporate knowledge of the neurological relationships that can keep muscles in distress and frustrate treatment.

We describe the common protocols, modules and treatment loops that will guide the core of your upper body approach for many years to come. This course will provide an excellent framework for integration after you attend the in-person.