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Ober's Test TFL Flexibility Assessment
Ober's Test TFL Flexibility Assessment assesses the flexibility of your tensor fascia latae (TFL) muscle. It is an important factor in injury prevention and increased performance in activities such as running, jumping, and cutting. It involves the patient lying on their side and having the therapist bend their knee away from the body while keeping their ankle support. This assessment is important in gauging the overall performance of your lower body and maintaining optimal physical health.
Transcript
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This is Brent coming at you with our
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we're going to do the Ober's test, which is specific flexibility assessment for
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the TFL, the tensor fascia lata. Now, we use these specific flexibility
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assessments to help narrow down our exercise selection after doing something
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like a dynamic movement assessment, such as the overhead squat.
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The big problem with the overhead squat is it implies joint actions.
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So if we have an anterior pelvic tilt, or I see an excessive forward lean,
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I know that my hip flexors are implicated as short and tight, but I don't
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know which one.
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That's when these tests come in real handy. I'm going to have my friend Yvette
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come out to help me demonstrate this assessment. The hardest thing about this test
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is just the setup. Once I get Yvette set up, you'll see the test is actually really
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really simple.
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I'm going to have Yvette go ahead and put her head down. Alright, because I want her spine in
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nice alignment. Notice she's kind of backed up towards me. Her spine is nice and straight all the way
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down.
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Next thing I'm going to do is make sure that her pelvis is in alignment. What I like
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to do guys, is that if they have some sort of elastic waistband on, is I'll ask last to
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adjust their waistband.
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So that I put it right over their ASIS, right over there their PSIS. Now I have a good visual marker of what
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pelvic neutral is and I'm going to use my fingers here, my index finger on her ASIS,
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my thumb on her PSIS. Now, I have good pressure receptors, I guess you could
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call them.
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Whereas, if I know I know I feel more pressure on my ASIS, she just went into a posterior pelvic tilt.
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If I feel more pressure into my thumb,
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she just wanted to an anterior pelvic tilt, I can also use my webspace on her iliac
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crest in this position
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to help brace your pelvis so that she doesn't go into lateral flexion of her spine.
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You guys will see why that's important in a second. Now with this hand, I need to get a good
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solid grasp of her knee and lie her lower leg on my forearm.
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It needs to be a good grip guys; you need to make sure that this is very
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comfortable for the patient or client, because if you kind of are not stable here
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they'll start to guard and you won't get a sense of what their passive
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extensibility is of this structure. I need to make sure it's nice and stable
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good grip.
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Then the other thing I need not do is pull her back into a lot of
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knee flexion. Knee flexion will confound the results of your test by shortening the
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rectus femoris which can also deflect us into abduction
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so you'll get up a false positive on this test.
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Going back through the whole setup and then we're going to do the test, which
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like I said, set up on this is everything and then the test is super easy.
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You're going to go ASIS, PSIS, web space on the iliac crest. She's nice
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and stable here.
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I'm gonna get this hand on her knee,
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making sure that her lower leg is on my forearm.
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I'm going to pull her back into extension, and you can use a little bit of abduction here.
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All I'm looking for here, guys, is an extension bias.
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I'm talking like, just past neutral, maybe 5 degrees of extension.
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That will put a little stretch on the TFL as a hip flexor, but I still should have enough
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extensibility of the TFL to drop her knee into adduction and that's adduction
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past neutral guys. I should almost be able to get the knee
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to this leg.
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You can see with Yvette that once I pull into extension,
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I have no adduction. That would be a positive Ober's test, which would be an
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indicator for me that her
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TFL is one of the short, overactive structures, which if I then go
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into my exercise selection,
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I already know that I probably should release and stretch this structure.
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You guys have seen
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hopefully, the TFL release videos as well as the kneeling hip flexor stretch, where
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I can show specific modifications of a TFL stretch.
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I hope you guys will try this. Once again going through a real quick review,
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ASIS, PSIS, brace. Hand on knee.
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Stabilize the lower leg, pull back into extension.
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Do they have any adduction left? If they don't, that's a positive test. I hope you guys
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enjoy this assessment. I hope it helps narrow your exercise selection. I look
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