00:00 - 00:03This is Brent coming at you with another calf stretch. In this video we're going to
00:03 - 00:08go over the slant board stretch as an alternative to the wall stretches I showed
00:08 - 00:12you before. Although that's a great stretch and it's something that you
00:12 - 00:16should have in your repertoire, to get the most out of it is actually fairly
00:16 - 00:21complicated to teach. So I'm going to show you guys how this stretch fulfills all of
00:21 - 00:26our criteria for a great stretch. It supports the bottom of the foot so we
00:26 - 00:30don't take the chance of stretching out those intrinsics of the foot, those
00:30 - 00:34intrinsic flexors that support the medial arch. We're going to keep the hip in
00:34 - 00:39a neutral position, so none of this long sit, pulling up with a strap, which puts
00:39 - 00:42the hip into flexion, knee into total extension, pulling up into dorsiflexion
00:42 - 00:48which has the potential to over stretch that sciatic nerve over time. We can put
00:48 - 00:53a considerable amount of force through a slant board, right. We have our entire
00:53 - 00:58body weight contributing to this force, and lastly, this is where things get
00:58 - 01:04really really simplified, in that wall stretch I had to work really hard to get
01:04 - 01:09somebody from that everted, turned-out position, that we're trying to correct
01:09 - 01:15with a calf stretch, into this inverted and dorsiflexed position. With a slant
01:15 - 01:20that becomes two simple queues. I think if you have tried that wall stretch I
01:20 - 01:24showed, you realize it takes a little bit of effort. I'm going to have my friend, Yvette,
01:24 - 01:28come out, she's going to help me demonstrate. So, first things first, the
01:28 - 01:34reason I've never showed this stretch before, I hadn't found these OPTP slants
01:34 - 01:38before, and this is not just an endorsement for a product, slant boards
01:38 - 01:42had the tendency to be really expensive, like in that hundred to two hundred
01:42 - 01:46dollar range, it makes it very hard for me to look at a client or a patient and
01:46 - 01:50go, 'hey I need you to get this for home', not to mention some of the slant boards
01:50 - 01:53I've had in the past were a little rickety on top of being expensive. These
01:53 - 01:59OPTP slants you can get on Amazon for 21 bucks, and it comes with two, if I beat
01:59 - 02:03them up it doesn't matter a terrible amount, they seem to last
02:03 - 02:07three to six months anyway, and then I just buy another set. I can refer a
02:07 - 02:12client to get these for home, so I know that in between our sessions they're
02:12 - 02:16continually working on gaining that dorsiflexion. Now, let's get back to the
02:16 - 02:20queues on this stretch so I can show you how simple this really is. Rather
02:20 - 02:24than that wall stretch where we had to turn the foot in and work on tibia on
02:24 - 02:29foot inversion and take a step sideways and do all this queuing, all I have to
02:29 - 02:33ask Yvette to do is go, "okay stand up on the slant board, hold on to this for
02:33 - 02:38support." She's going to turn her feet a little pigeon-toed, so pinky toe pointing
02:38 - 02:43forward, or fifth metatarsal pointing forward, and then once she gets into a
02:43 - 02:48little bit of rotation this way, all I need to do is externally rotate her legs
02:48 - 02:52a little bit to pop her arches back up, and I can do that with a simple queue of
02:52 - 03:00squeeze your glutes, and stand up nice and tall. Alright, so now we have a nice calf
03:00 - 03:04stretch. We have the hip in neutral position, so no sciatic nerve issues, we
03:04 - 03:09have the foot in inversion, so that's not a problem. We have a considerable
03:09 - 03:12amount of weight with our whole body weight in the stretch, and it's
03:12 - 03:16absolutely no effort for the patient or client. This actually, for the
03:16 - 03:19most part, unless somebody has arthrokinematic dysfunction that you're going to
03:19 - 03:23have to take care of, I actually find this more effective than doing manual
03:23 - 03:28stretching on a patient or client. Now, the only problem with the OPTP slant
03:28 - 03:34is that the angle isn't very steep. So this is great for somebody who just came
03:34 - 03:41in who is very tight, but after a few weeks of doing this they're going to get as
03:41 - 03:44much as they can out of the OPTP slant and we're going to have to find something
03:44 - 03:52a little bit more intense. So we're going to trade in two pieces of cheap foam, and
03:52 - 03:59by cheap I just mean less expensive, which I love, for another piece of cheap
03:59 - 04:04foam, which is the half foam roll. So if I take this half foam roll and put it flat
04:04 - 04:09side up, when Yvette comes and steps on it and does the exact same queues,
04:09 - 04:14she's pinky toe pointed forward, she gets her heels down on the
04:14 - 04:17floor, and she can be leaned back a little bit, that's okay and then she
04:17 - 04:23squeezes her glutes, we're right back to having a nice slant board, bottom of foot
04:23 - 04:29supported, she's in that inverted position. Squeeze your glutes, and
04:29 - 04:33you can see here that the half foam roll is actually a fairly steep angle. So this
04:33 - 04:38gives her a lot more to work on. For Yvette, personally, I would actually give her
04:38 - 04:42the half foam roll for home, rather than the OPTP slants because the OPTP
04:42 - 04:48slants looked a little not challenging enough for her. So there you go.
04:48 - 04:52I want you to learn that wall stretch. That wall stretch is important
04:52 - 04:55in the previous video. It's important that you have a technique that requires
04:55 - 05:00absolutely no equipment. All of you who have runners with tight calves who
05:00 - 05:05end up doing these events and need some way to warm up beforehand, they need
05:05 - 05:11something with no equipment, but for your clubs get something that you can use for
05:11 - 05:15a slant board, it will make your life a ton easier, and then make sure that if
05:15 - 05:20your clients have lower leg dysfunction, your patients have lower leg dysfunction
05:20 - 05:25and some sort of ankle, foot, lower leg injury, that you get this stuff for home
05:25 - 05:28so that they can continue working on it. I hope you get a huge results, I
05:28 - 05:32look forward to talking to you again soon.