Sifting through the bullshit

[tweakxc03]

Rip:

Been thinking about a lot of the misconceptions out there that you have pointed out on this site and in your books. It made me start to question pretty much everything I've been told or read.

I figured I may as well ask about other things that may or may not be accurate and/or useful:

1. ART - Active Release Therapy - "muscle imbalances can lead to adhesions and scar tissue, active release therapy breaks that up" -- is this bullshit?

2. the "mobility" craze - "Our hips and "core"/tva can get 'locked up', 'inactive', and and "dysfunctional" to the point where stretching alone doesn't work, so you have to use myofacial release and mobility drills to 'open the hips'" wtf does locked up even mean, physiologically? I know you aren't a proponent of the drills themselves. I am more curious about what this is supposed to do that stretching supposedly cannot.

3. "tight ql, piriformis, and psoas "imbalances" can make one hip higher than the other, cause internal rotation of the femurs (contributing to IT band syndrome)...anal leakage, heart murmurs, nosebleeds, vomitting, incontinence, instantaneous death....

I guess what I'm getting at is there seems to be a lot of PT talk about things being "locked up", "switched off", "inactive" "immobile", with "adhesions" and "fibrotic tissue".... Is any of this actually real? I mean, I know that a deep tissue massage can help tense muscles relax. Is there anything more to it than that?


Thanks

[Mark Rippetoe]

As I've said many times before, the vast majority of everything that most PTs and most other "allied health care professionals" say is wrong -- self-serving quasi-physiological bullshit.

[IlPrincipeBrutto]

3. "tight <cut> piriformis <cut> can make one hip higher than the other,

I would second this part. I had a twisted pelvis in the past, with one part tilted very slightly forward compared to the other (got this through driving a small car with badbly positioned pedals). It was indeed a tight piriformis, and it took a physio one session to put things right.
I do occasionally feel the muscles around that side of my pelvis getting tight, but the difference is that I now know how to stretch them. I also changed car to one with slightly less crappy pedals, and that helped too.

IPB