0:05 This is Brent of the Brookbush Institute, and in this video we're going to 0:07 go over lower trap manual muscle testing for an active or athletic population. So 0:12 we're going to go ahead and get rid of that Kendall scale for now. We're going 0:16 to replace it with a simpler scale of strong, weak with compensation, or with 0:21 pain. But we're going to pay closer attention to the details of our test 0:26 because we know in this active or athletic population, we're putting a lot 0:30 of load, a lot of stress on their musculoskeletal system. Sometimes it 0:35 doesn't take a very big change to start leading to some dysfunction and pain. So 0:41 I'm gonna have my friend Melissa come out, she's going to help me demonstrate 0:43 this test. The test is in prone position, unfortunately even if you have a face 0:51 hole cut out, chances are for this test they're not going to be able to get to 0:56 the face hole cut out, because you need their shoulder to hang off the side of 1:00 the table. So you're going to go ahead and have them turn their head towards 1:05 your test position. Now I'm going to go ahead and bring her arm where I want it, 1:12 so it's going to be about 45 degrees, or in line with the lower trap fibers. 1:18 Remember those lower trap fibers kind of come off that medial portion of the 1:23 spine of the scapula here, going down to T6-T12. So I can feel them right in 1:28 there. Now i'm going to start her assuming that she's not cheating now, and 1:33 i pulled her into this position. I'm going to cue her into some depression, retraction, 1:37 and to make sure she's in upward rotation. That inferior angle should be 1:41 bowed out a little bit, because that's what my lower trap does. The first test I 1:46 might do is just go, ok i'm going to let go of your arm. Can you hold this position, and 1:51 see if she can hold it for a few seconds. Not so easy, 1:57 not so easy at all. Then I might have her start over. Okay let's go ahead and 2:03 see if we can do that again. Let's go ahead and come up into the position 2:07 Now I'm going to add a little external resistance, and the 2:15 first thing I get with Melissa is not necessarily weakness, which is not 2:20 uncommon on this test. I don't get weakness, I get scapular elevation. Of 2:25 course the lower trap doesn't do scapular elevation, so what's going on 2:30 here? We have synergistic dominance, we have compensation. The overactive 2:35 synergists for my lower trapezius are going to be muscles like my rhomboids, my 2:41 levator scapulae, potentially even my upper traps trying to stabilize for a 2:48 lower trap that can't hold my scapula back into a little bit of depression, a 2:54 little bit of retraction, an upward rotation. So let me show you guys that 2:57 one more time. You can exaggerate a little bit this time Melissa. I put on 3:02 some external resistance, and she goes straight into this elevated position 3:07 with her scapula. Now just like all of the other manual muscle tests for active 3:15 populations we've been talking about it, is also not uncommon for you to go okay, 3:21 raise your arm, and somebody gets to about there, and can't go any further. 3:25 Don't forget with this particular test, mobility is going to be quite the issue 3:31 as well. If they don't have good thoracic mobility, they won't be able to posteriorly 3:36 tilt their scapula and get themselves into position where they're 3:42 parallel with the table. So that might be thoracic spine mobility. Just getting 3:47 into posterior tipping of the scapula also requires optimal extensibility of 3:53 the pectoralis minor. So something else for you guys to think about with this 3:57 particular test. It's often upper body dysfunction as a whole that is 4:04 contributing to poor performance, not just lower trap. One way to help 4:10 differentiate what's going on is do your mobility work first, and then retest 4:17 the lower trap. So if you do all of the mobility work, and all of a sudden you 4:21 get up here, the range of motion is perfect, and they can hold that position 4:26 with a little bit of external resistance. Maybe the lower trap is strong, you just 4:31 have mobility issues. What you also might find is you do all your mobility work, 4:35 you get your range of motion back, and they're only strong in the range of 4:39 motion they used to have. Which means when you're thinking about your 4:42 activation techniques, you need to be thinking about how am I going to 4:45 strengthen this person through that range of motion they didn't have before 4:49 the mobility work, so that I can get their lower trap functioning well 4:54 through the entire range of motion. So just a real quick review on this test 4:59 here again guys. Make sure you have them prone, head facing you. You're going to go 5:06 ahead and cue them to 45 degrees, or in line with their lower trap fibers. 5:10 Remember those lower trap fibers come off the medial portion of the spine of 5:14 the scapula. I'm going to go ahead and make sure she starts in good position. 5:18 I'm just going to add a little external resistance. Of course now Melissa's 5:22 testing weak, but a very common pattern to also see is go ahead and exaggerate 5:28 for me Melissa, is this elevation of the scapula. I hope you guys took a lot from 5:34 this video. I hope you get a lot from this test as far as refining your 5:39 intervention and exercise selection. I look forward to hearing your results. 5:50
