Dooley Noted: 11/5/2014
On my flight last weekend, I was asked to valet check my carryon.
The man in front of me was asked to do the same.
Immediately, I noticed his right wrist brace.
Dooley, The Clinician, is hard to shut down.
As we waited to check our luggage, I watched him text message – with his right hand.
I observed his anterior head carriage compromising his neck and shoulder stability, while choking off the nerves leading down to his hands.
I watched him haul his luggage with his braced wrist.
I noticed his winging shoulder blades and overdeveloped pectoral region and arms.
I also noticed he had suboptimal lower extremity development. His glutes were smaller than his pecs. His thighs were smaller than his arms.
I watched how his lower body stayed quiet as he used his arms to hoist his backpack up to the overhead compartment.
And at the luggage carousel, I watched him use his braced right wrist to hoist his luggage off the carousel.
His right wrist was hurting for one prime reason: it’s working!
He needed wrist support alright. But he didn’t need it from a neoprene brace.
He needed to learn to generate force from the ground up,
That’s hard to do with inhibited lats, glutes, spinal stabilizers, etc.
Instead, he generated force with his wrist. Then he braced it, so he could keep doing it!
Before you brace up what hurts, consider why you need to brace it.
If you’re bracing it to continue the dysfunction, you may need to rethink that strategy before it inevitably backfires.
As always, it’s your call.
– Dr. Kathy Dooley