When a teammate told him that “you have to see Ann and Chris Frederick at Stretch to Win in Phoenix”, David Thornton immediately packed his bags to come see the veteran therapist couple who have used Fascial Stretch Therapy at 3 Super Bowls and multiple NFC championships.

David Thornton (#50) has entered his 9th season in the NFL, beating the average years (2.6) that a player stays in the league by a long shot. However, like all vets, as the years tick by and the young ones struggle to stay on the roster at camp and current pre-season games, questions start working their way into the vets head: can I keep up my speed, strength, agility and recover quickly and completely, preventing injuries that are avoidable?

The online news, Tennesean.com, stated that “Doctors haven’t cleared him for contact. He remained on the Physically Unable to Perform list, still recovering from a variety of injuries that derailed his 2009 season.” Even though the Titans are giving Thornton time, #50 knows that ‘times a tickin’ and he needed to do all he can to stack the cards in his favor to recover as soon as possible, as the starting, unarguably fastest linebacker on the team.

While his teams athletic trainers and strength coaches have all done a great job rehab-ing this great player, he told me that his glute medius was still weak. After performing a gait analysis, functional and manual strength tests, hip joint capsule mobility/extensibility and neuromyofascial flexibility tests, I determined that the glute medius was not weak in and of itself but rather that it was simply inhibited by a chronically tight iliacus more than the psoas. When I asked Thornton whether anyone had ever done the deep fascial release of his iliopsoas, he replied no, never in his previous 8 seasons (not even by his massage therapist).  

Unlike most therapists who do work on this myofascial complex, I prefer to release the fascia between the ilio-psoas in the sidelying position first, so that the organs are in a gravity dependent position and are out of the way. I start releasing the fascia between the two muscles passively then progress the release with increasing active range of motion both with hip external rotation to release the iliacus and hip extension to release the psoas. This is followed by glute medius and maximus activation variations both in non and full weight bearing positions, with the patient/client learning how to self-palpate to aid the tactile and verbal cueing for neuromuscular re-education.

Needless to say, David Thornton left VERY happy – not only more flexible but much STRONGER and ready to accelerate his rehab with the Titans. Chris interviewed him right after receiving his second day of treatment in this brief video – enjoy!

By Chris Frederick, PT

Fascial Stretch Therapy™ helps Titans David Thornton from Stretch to Win on Vimeo.

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Today’s the last day for us here at the Arizona Cardinals football team’s preseason training camp and this year makes it our 14th season using Fascial Stretch Therapy to help the athletes recover faster and perform better! Here’s a short clip of the Stretch to Win crew going to Cardinal practice:

Stretch to Win crew at Cardinals camp 2010 from Stretch to Win on Vimeo.

For those of our fellow practitioners out there who have never practiced manual therapy (PT, massage, chiropractic or whatever) at an NFL camp, it is 3 weeks of intense, off the chart competition among athletes fighting to either keep their job or get one with the team. While the team’s athletic trainers do a valiant job, they are out-numbered and simply have to keep treaments relatively short and to the point. That’s where we come in.

One big finding (out of the many) that we encounter here, is a prevalence of the deep spinal/hip flexors inhibiting the power of the glutes. That scenario inevitably leads to potentially many problems including the common hamstring strain, as that muscle group takes on extra loading acting as secondary glutes. This is a lose-lose situation, and will end in injury sooner or later.

After I perform functional weight bearing tests and a manual muscle test in supine, results typically indicate all test strong except the glutes (I just use glute medius as the overall quick manual muscle test for glute strength). Corroborating that finding with palpation, where I often find a lack of differentiation between unilateral or bilateral iliacus and psoas (i.e. they are ‘glued’ together), my first goal is to ‘separate’ or ‘tease apart’ those two slow twitch, postural muscles and fascia.

Depending on the athlete, this can take at least 20 minutes per side, followed by Fascial Stretch Therapy techniques for the iliopsoas and quads. After re-testing glute strength, they return to a 5/5 full strength in one session. When the athlete stands up, they usually immediately feel the difference but I will lower my electric table for them to do step ups as a functional test where they feel the immediate increase in glute power.

Tim Hightower (#34) is the starting running back for the Cardinals and he will tell you how Fascial Stretch Therapy has radically changed his body and his game in the video below. Enjoy and I invite you to ask questions or comment on this post.

Fascial Stretch Therapy™ – how it helps Tim Hightower from Stretch to Win on Vimeo.

BONUS VIDEO – all I can say is that I was in the right place at the right time to capture star receiver Larry Fitzgerald catching a beauty from quarterback Matt Leinart. Enjoy!!

Larry Fitzgerald makes a great catch at Cardinals camp 2010 from Stretch to Win on Vimeo.

Posted by Chris (‘StretchDawg’) Frederick, PT  / Co-creator Fascial Stretch Therapy™ / Co- director Stretch to Win Center / Author ‘Stretch to Win’

Co-director – Stretch to Win Institute- “Training professionals in Fascial Stretch Therapy™ / At Facebook / At Twitter / At LinkedIn