The manipulation Pieter used in this case can be seen in this video: [ Ссылка ]. This time we had the great opportunity to have a participant in the course being familiar with surface EMG measurements. (Thanks to Philip)
A review published in 2014 [1] has shown that spinal manual therapy (including manipulations and mobilizations) can increase the ROM during neural tension test in the upper extremity.
In our own „case-study“ we have been interested what would happen to the muscle activity (measured by surface EMG) during the ULNT1 after a thoracic spinal manipulation.
The participant felt symptoms in his hand and forearm during testing. Interestingly during differentiation by changing the shoulder girdle you can see a change in EMG signal in the forearm (measuring the activity of the flexor carpi radialis). At the end of the video you can see that the EMG activity of the forearm muscle is obviously reduced. Also the EMG activity of the biceps is slightly reduced. So the treatment was able to reduce the protective muscle response during testing of the nervous system.
A great way to see that the mechanisms of manual therapy are way more than localized and biomechanical.
Also thanks to Artur for being volunteer in the experiment.
[1] Chu et al. Peripheral response to cervical or thoracic spinal manual therapy: an evidence-based review with meta analysis. J Man Manip Ther. 2014 Nov; 22(4): 220–229.
