If you are a regular reader of this blog, you are well aware of my appreciation of Dycem as an aid to treatment and self-treatment. Not only does it improve our grip, allowing a lighter touch with less fatigue, but it also widens the area of contact, allowing us to engage more of our client’s tissue and nervous system. Along those lines I wish to share a few things I’ve learned along the way, specifically pertaining to a supine lumbosacral decompression.

The supine lumbosacral decompression is a highly effective technique taught in many forms of body work, which is excellent for pelvic, low back, and related pain issues. The technique, while taught using different words and different pressures, is essentially the same: Cradle the sacrum and traction toward the feet, while meeting the barrier with the lower abdominal hand and move engage toward the shoulders, exploring and treating all tissue in between the two hands. Then sacral hand moves the pelvis in a posterior rotation, decreasing the lumbar curve and lightly tractioning the spine and all of its connections. It is an extremely effective technique and I have developed a few ways to make it even more effective.

-First, try using Dycem in your sacral hand. My “more experienced” clients report back to me that the feeling is unlike they have ever felt and the there are more far reaching effects as well. I was skeptical at first, as I thought the grip would be too much, but I was pleasantly surprised.

-Second, when this technique was taught to me, when your bottom hand had had enough of the pressure of the sacrum, we were instructed to have the client slowly lift off of your hand so that you could remove it. This, in effect, ends the spinal and sacral traction, as most clients will move back into an anteriorly rotated pelvic position. I always hated to give up on this, as the traction position (with posterior pelvic rotation) was advantageous for effective engagement of the barrier between the sacrum and top hand. Now, instead of having them lift off of my hand, I tell them not to lift, that I am going to drag my hand out from under their sacrum, so as to keep the traction. I begin telling them this before I make a move to change the position, as many clients are so self-conscious about their weight on your hand that as soon as you begin to pull out they lift up. After following this procedure over the past few years I’ve found that I can continue the technique, this time with only a single hand on the lower abdomen, and not lose the effectiveness.  You simply drag your hand out while keeping the sacrum tipped posteriorly. Try these two tips and let me know how they work!

Cheers,

Walt Fritz, PT

Author: Walt Fritz