A Dynamic Approach to ACL Rehabilitation and Prevention: Part III - A Guest Blog

Last week, we discussed the use of dynamic taping to assist with quad control during the ACL rehabilitation process.  This week, we will look how Dynamic Tape can assist in controling hip internal rotation.

DYNAMIC TAPING #2: HIP EXTERNAL ROTATION TAPING

There are two major strategies for balance: Ankle and Hip. For those with an ACL injury we spend a

lot of time with single and dynamic balance / jumping exercises, while watching how the foot lands. Reality is much of the control comes from the hip. Weakness at the core and hip external rotators drives an already adducted and internally rotated femur inwards. Through any screening observing the risk factors but what can you do to control it on the field?

A few clinicians in Brazil piloted a study seeing if they could change knee control with a single leg jump in volleyball players. Makes sense with a high-risk population for jumping and landing. They used this dynamic tape hip rotation technique to place the femur in a more externally rotated position. The results were amazing, but not shocking once you see this stuff in action (Bittencourt et al, Brit J Sport Med 2017).

With the hip started in full external rotation and extension, the corrective measure was designed to maximally control rotation when the hip was flexed and internally rotated.  

Watch this Spark Motion video to see all this in action.

*Note with this taping, you do not necessarily need to rotate all the way around for SI control if you don’t feel that is an issue*

“Why” This Dynamic Approach

Through proximal control of the femur, changes distally are affected. Correct the angle and direction of landing and reduction in rotation and adduction is achievable.  But a research study is not good enough for me as I wanted to see this in action. So, I met up with Doug Adams, PT and creator of Trace 3D, a motion sensing system that is essentially a “running lab in a box.” His system is validated against the best of the best so I taped him up.

First, we got a baseline for his running and then followed up with taping. After his second run of it, we looked at the data.

A 50% change in reduced IR at the hip with running, throughout the entire cycle.

Could have been a fluke, right? So that same day I did the same taping at Philadelphia Shriners Pediatric gait lab. How would Dynamic Tape fair with this system? The data was even better. We could see that with the hip external rotation approach, Dynamic Tape was able to take someone pathological with hip ER with walking and restore it to within norms.

Now look at the curve. It changed the rotation evenly throughout the entire motion both closed and open chained! And even more fun at its peak it was about a 46% change in motion, almost the exact same amount that it was just 5 hours earlier with a different person and a different system.

To go even further, we took that same person’s opposite hip and tape it from normal into a pathological hip position and as expected, took someone from normal to abnormal with the taping.

DT TAKE HOME MESSAGE

Changes in lower body mechanics take time so why not provide your athlete with a strategy that works now. For those of you worried about tape then “weakening muscles” or movement patterns rest assured, once someone can perform a battery of tests without the tape and passes, you don’t need it anymore! Therapeutic taping is not an “every day” thing, it is designed with a purpose that stems from a biomechanical need. Once the need is gone, so goes the tape.

Want to learn more about Dynamic Tape or the Trace 3D Running System? Please contact Keith J. Cronin, DPT, OCS, CSCS at keithjcroninpt@gmail.com or visit the website at www.dynamictape.com

Dr. Nessler is a practicing physical therapist with over 20 years sports medicine clinical experience and a nationally recognized expert in the area of athletic movement assessment.  He is the developer of an athletic biomechanical analysis, is an author of a college textbook on this subject  and has performed >5000 athletic movement assessments.  He serves as the National Director of Sports Medicine Innovation for Select Medical, is Chairman of Medical Services for the International Obstacle Racing Federation and associate editor of the International Journal of Athletic Therapy and Training.   He is also a competitive athlete in Jiu Jitsu.