Upper Body Assessment and Treatment Techniques-Simplified!

Welcome to the course! You are about to learn how to treat your clients based on the evidence we now know about not only how pain is produced in the body but also how we need to treat our clients differently because of this.

Download these books so that you can read through them later to get a deep understanding of pain and how it is produced in the body and of course how we will then treat our clients

If you have never done IASTM or gua sha dont worry, you do not need any special tools to start with, you will have what you need in your home to get going.

Here is how we will now treat our clients using IASTM/gua sha techniques, its not what you have been taught previously

How is it possible that people have degeneration in their discs, cartilage tears, herniations, osteoathritic joints and many more pathologies but zero pain and then others have the same problems and are in lots of pain?

So much of what we have been taught, and what I have been teaching is not correct now that we know much of the recent evidence in the past several years. Knowing what we now know, we can use a different approach to increase ROM, decrease pain and get better results.

Now that you know how pain is produced, here is how you need to start treating your clients.

I have always taught you in my professional cupping therapy course and also my gua sha courses that it's completely unnecessary to make the red marks on the bodies of your clients. Now we know why I got such great results and you will too!

We are NOT doing what we thought that we were therapeutically. YES, we are increasing ROM and decreasing pain but not for the reasons we thought.

If, after just hearing the last lecture, you would like to see more evidence, no problems. I have it for you.

What I have taught you is not only probably new to you but it is also really important that you understand it so that from now on you will understand that the treatment itself is only a small part of your therapeutic effects on your clients

Based on what you now know, you want to use this to your advantage!

With the light treatments that you have been taught, would there ever be a reason to go deeper on your clients? Yes, there is.

Lets start you with the neck and what to look out for so that you can see the common patterns and also learn the neck treatments that will simplify your life as a therapist

This single neck exercise is the most powerful way to help virtually all clients including your own neck if you are in pain or have stiffness.

This is the second neck protocol that will once again help your neck pain clients but not only that, it can have profound effects on shoulder problems and other upper limb problems if the neck is involved.

Now we will take it to another level to help your clients and also yourself

This is what you can do to help painful necks and increase range decreased ROM.

Here is a simple and effective screen test that you can use for all neck, shoulder, thoracic, elbow and wrist problems.

We will also use FN (Functional No pain) in other words normal,  FP (Functional and Pain/Parasthesia) full range but painful, DN (Dysfunctional No pain) not full ROM/maybe stiffness and No pain, and DP(Dysfunctional with Pain). No matter what upper quadrant problem it is-carpal tunnel, rotator cuff tears, elbow pain, neck pain etc. we always screen the neck first.

This, in a nutshell, is what you will most commonly see with neck pain and also if the shoulders and upper limbs are involved. This simplifies everything even more for you.

Some people will get better slower than others. The great news is that the vast majority of your clients will respond very quickly. The problem is, how do you know which are which? Here I explain.

As we focus on retractions, you may be wondering why.

This is incredibly important for you to know as a practitioner and also what to teach your clients to look out for.

Right, lets just wrap up what you have learned thus far.

This is a great way to question your client. It gives you a mountain of information

Now, lets go through regressions and progressions so that you know what to do if someone is really in lots of pain.

I have recommended throughout the course 10 repetitions every hour to remove pain and dysfunction but if you have elderly clients or clients that you think may be not compliant for seam reason, you have use these recommendations

Now we will look at doing some treatments to increase ROM and decrease pain

Now that you have absorbed the information for yourself I will show you how to do the assessment on your clients

Now is our next step, lets look at the neck retractions

And from knowing our patterns and the restrictions, we can now start increasing ROMs and using our techniques to decrease pain as well

You have now done the 'heavy lifting' when it comes to treating your neck pain clients. Lets take a look at specific treatments to compliment what you have already diagnosed.

Here we will do retraction with side bending mobilizations if the person was restricted/had pain doing it in sitting. We will also do modifications if they have pain at end range and what to do if there is pain in mid range (a 'catching pain'). 

This is how you can do advanced gua sha/IASTM for the neck.

If you dont already have a great back and neck massage sequence, here is a 1 hour deep tissue myofascial massage sequence for the back and neck

This is how you can do advanced gua sha/IASTM for the upper back. This lecture is taken from my advanced IASTM Gua Sha course

This is how you can do professional cupping therapy  for the upper back. This lecture is taken from my cupping for trigger points  course

This is how you can do advanced gua sha/IASTM for the neck. This lecture is taken from my advanced IASTM Gua Sha course

So when your client is pain free, what do you recommend then?

This will simplify treating the vast majority of shoulder problems for you.

Here I will describe the assessment for the shoulder for you

Its also really important that you retest the actual movement that they are complaining of, not just flexion or abduction (for example)

Now I will continue the assessment on Liam this time doing the shoulder assessment and look for the most common patterns

As you will see in this lecture, we can also check the internal rotation again as well as external rotation. As you can see from our seated assessment and the scratch tests, we can confirm the decreased ROM in internal rotation

This is how you can do advanced gua sha/IASTM for the shoulder . This lecture is taken from my advanced IASTM Gua Sha course

This is how you can do advanced gua sha/IASTM for the upper back. This lecture is taken from my advanced IASTM Gua Sha course

Now that we have addressed the neck and shoulder complex, we will look at thoracic asymmetries.

How to do these exercises if you or your client needs to do them in a standing position

Even though you have already seen this in the quick initial assessment, I go through it again in more detail for you

If, after all of that, the person still has pain and/or restrictions, you can check that the nerves aren't involved. (Please note that these are contraindicated with spinal cord involvement)

If, after all of that, the person still has pain and/or restrictions, you can check that the nerves aren't involved

If, after all of that, the person still has pain and/or restrictions, you can check that the nerves aren't involved

Now I will show you how to do specific treatment techniques to help with these symptoms.

Now its time to look at treating the elbows, forearms, wrists and hands.

This is how you can do elbow mobilizations for conditions such as tennis and golfers elbow

This is how you can do elbow mobilizations for conditions such as carpal tunnel syndrome and other wrist complaints

This is how you can do professional cupping therapy for the forearms.

This is how you can do advanced gua sha/IASTM for the forearms. This lecture is taken from my advanced IASTM Gua Sha course

This is how you can do advanced gua sha/IASTM for the wrists, forearms and hands. This lecture is taken from my advanced IASTM Gua Sha course

We can also use kinesiology taping as a brilliant novel stimulus that continues to work on your clients between treatments

Here I show you the steps to applying the kinesio tape

..and of course how to remove it properly

How to apply kinesiology taping for a crick in the neck

How to apply kinesiology taping for shoulder pain and support

How to apply kinesiology taping for biceps pain

How to apply kinesiology taping for tennis elbow

How to apply kinesiology taping for golfers elbow

How to apply kinesiology taping for carpal tunnel syndrome

How to apply kinesiology taping for general wrist pain

This is how to apply kinesiology taping for thumb pain-De Quervain Syndrome, gamer's thumb, Mother's thumb and more