Spinal Mobility Is The Most Underrated Tool In Your Practice
In this episode of the Unreal Results podcast, I’m talking all about the spine, not just as a mover or stabilizer, but as one of the body’s most important protectors.
You’ll hear why I believe spinal mobility is one of the most underrated keys to vitality, healing, and nervous system regulation. I break down how improving segmental movement in the spine can have cascading effects throughout the body, impacting everything from organ function and cerebrospinal fluid flow to emotional well-being and autonomic balance.
I also share why so many clients “fail” traditional rehab and end up finding relief through approaches like Pilates or chiropractic care—and how that’s often a reflection of what standard treatment is missing.
Make sure you tune in to learn why spine mobility might be the most underrated tool in your treatment plan.
Resources Mentioned In This Episode
Episode 28: The Power Of The Trigeminal Nerve
Episode 70: How The Trigeminal Nerve Could Supercharge Your Practice
Episode 41: 3 Powerful Nerves
Polestar Pilates Courses - Check Them Out Here
Sign Up For The Neural Manipulation 1 Barral Institute Course (Please tell them Anna Hartman sent you!)
Get the book Trauma: An Osteopathic Approach by Jean-Pierre Barral
Get my Regen Session: Reset Your Nervous System HERE
Movement Video: Spinal Roll Down
Movement Video: DaVinci Rolling
Movement Video: Ragdoll
Movement Video: Quadruped Segmental Spine Mobility
Learn the LTAP™ In-Person in one of my upcoming courses
Considering the viscera as a source of musculoskeletal pain and dysfunction is a great way to ensure a more true whole body approach to care, however it can be a bit overwhelming on where to start, which is exactly why I created the Visceral Referral Cheat Sheet. This FREE download will help you to learn the most common visceral referral patterns affecting the musculoskeletal system. Download it at www.unrealresultspod.com
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Anna Hartman: Hey there and welcome. I'm Anna Hartman and this is Unreal Results, a podcast where I help you get better outcomes and gain the confidence that you can help anyone, even the most complex cases. Join me as I teach about the influence of the visceral organs in the nervous system on movement, pain and injuries, all while shifting the paradigm of what whole body assessment and treatment really looks like.
I'm glad you're here. Let's dive in.
Hello. Hello. Welcome back to another episode of the Unreal Results Podcast. Um, I was thinking about what to talk about today and, you know, I always sort of like rely on a little bit of like what's coming up in my own practice and, um, also just kind of sticking with the theme of the summer, short, short podcast snacks and, um.
Also like kinda like leaning in the visceral thing. So I was, I was wanting to talk about the tentorium and of course what I always do for my podcast episodes when I have an idea is I, in my brain, I'm like, is it, I don't know if it's like. I doubt myself or what, but I think it's not doubt doubting myself.
It's like I wanna make sure when I provide information to you it's accurate and not just semi accurate based on how I am using it in my head, if that makes sense. So I always go back to the textbooks, um, from the courses. That I learned the information in. So when it comes to the tentorium, uh, you learn about the tentorium in the first neural manipulation class from the Barral Institute, um, which is an M1.
Uh, it is one of my favorite classes of theirs. It is one of the classes that I use, probably the techniques from the most, so. You know, I'm never like telling everybody like, go take this course, but also like, this is a great course plus we've talked about in previous episodes, and I'll have Joe maybe link those in the show notes.
You know, like I think one was talking about like the difference between the autonomic nervous system and the central nervous system or like how to differentiate the two. Talked a little bit about just, um accessing the parasympathetic nervous system without breathing. So anytime we talk about the nervous system, and even within the LTAP, when we get to the step where we're identifying if there is any central nervous system, tension patterns or not, it really highlights that in the professions of physical therapy and athletic training.
Um. We often don't have a lot of skills around assessing and treating this area of the body unless you've taken courses like craniosacral, these neuro manipulation courses. Um, what other things? That could be it. Um, functional neurology courses, craniofascial technique. It's getting more popular out there.
Um, myofascial release, like the Barnes Method has a cranial based one too, so it's like, unless you've taken these courses outside of traditional work, like as far as like our traditional orthopedic training. I don't really cover it, and so I'm like, maybe if you're a pediatric physical therapist or maybe if you're a neuro based physical therapist, you have a little bit more skills around this.
Vestibular therapist might have some more skills around this, but it's still like I a huge blind spot in most of our practice. This is why I end up putting a lot of like, um, I don't wanna say a lot of products, but I, it's why I have some products out there to support you in this, right? So it's like, and I'll have Joe link these in the show notes too, but the reset, your nervous system, regen session, really simple ways that we can affect the central nervous system.
Um. I have a little mini course, which takes that region session and provides the clinical reasoning throughout it. Inside the mentorship program that's upcoming, we spend a whole module talking about the autonomic nervous system and the cranial nerves. Um, we have, um, what else do I have in that aspect?
The podcast episodes I think that's I think those are the things, really, those regen sessions, the clinical reasoning course, um, in my go-to treatments mini course as well. Um, or PDF, some of that, some of you got in this last launch, um, that also has some central nervous system treatments too. Oh, the podcast episode, I was thinking that I'll have Joe Link in the show notes was the episode on the trigeminal nerve.
Because, because what? well What? What comes out when you start learning about the tentorium is how much the trigeminal nerve influences it, or vice versa, how much the tentorium influences the trigeminal nerve, and so the trigeminal nerve ends up being a really powerful way to treat the tentorium, treat the central nervous system and the tensions.
Now, all this to tell you, this episode actually, I decided is not going to be on the tentorium because. I don't want it to be too long and I need to like gather more thoughts on how I want to approach it. Um, but why I led with this is 'cause this is, this is where the episode is going is because as I was reading more about the tentorium, which is in this book that they use for that NM one class.
The book is called, um, Trauma and Osteopathic Approach. It's co-authored by Jean Pierre Barral as well as Alan, uh, which is one of the other main in instruc main creators, main teachers in the, um, Barral Institute classes. This is a packed full Inver book and. Often when you see a book called trauma, I think most of us, when we think of trauma, we think of maybe psychological trauma.
We maybe think of physical and psychological trauma together. We don't think of trauma as just what happens when the body goes well, when the body is impacted by forces, and that's really what this book is about. Mechanical trauma and the effect of mechanical trauma. On the body, specifically on the central nervous system and all the supporting containers of the central nervous system.
And so when I was reading about the tentorium, one of the things that really, um, stood out to me was, um, this sentence actually, it says consequences for the vertebral axis. It says spinal functions. Are usually listed in the following order, stability, mobility, and protection of contents. And I loved seeing that because we've been talking lately a lot about container versus contents, and that's really like how I look at my assessment and treatment within the LTAP, um, and within when I'm working with my athletes, so that that really hit home.
And then this next sentence he said, or they said, we believe that the spine is first and foremost an organ of protection, to which the other functions are secondary. And this again aligns with this whole point of this podcast, this whole point of what I am teaching is that the musculoskeletal system, one of the main roles of it is to protect the organism and fundamentally by protecting the organism. It's this idea of protecting the important vital organs of the organism, right? And then it says, all vertebral mechanics are organized for protection of its precious contents. And when we look at, especially when we look at how the central nervous system and the meninges are connected to the spine.
We see this beautiful design of all these like checkpoints of force distribution throughout the dura to allow movement of the spinal cord transmission of information through the spinal cord and also.
It makes you think about how all of these forces within the spine,
how they're constantly downwardly pulling, basically at the brain. And so what prevents all this tension from our spine, our spine being a mover, our spine being protector, um, from not getting translated to. The brain itself and this brainstem. And so this was what brings us back to this beautiful anatomical structure of the tentorium and how the tentorium, um, is designed to redistribute forces.
Equalize the forces from the rest of the body to make sure the brain is like as undisturbed as possible so it can function well. Now, um, like I said, I don't want this episode to be about the tentorium, but maybe it's like a little sneak peak about a future episode about the tentorium, I guess, but, but why?
I was like, you know what? I just think I wanna talk about the spine and because this other, well, that whole, that whole, that whole paragraph kind of threw me for a loop, only because it hammers home the
how important spine function and spine mobility is not only for movement, but for the health of the organs, the health of the central nervous system and the health of our autonomic nervous system and protection or. The ability to thrive for the whole organism. And it reminded me previously before I got into the world of osteopathic medicine through the Barral Institute, the thing that I had dove into before that was Pilates.
I went through the Polestar Pilates rehabilitation, um certification and one of my favorite quotes from Joseph Pilates that I, I always saw to be true once I started applying it with my patients and in my own body. Joseph Pilates has this famous quote that is basically like, if your spine is inflexibly stiff at 30, you are, you're old on, on the flip side, if your spine is super flexible at 60, you're young. So he talks about this vitality. One of Joseph Pilate's first book was all about like vitality in life and vitality and feeling good operating well, like really running on all cylinders. And this vitality he really believed was achievable through maintaining spine mobility.
And, and also integrating breath into movement. And when you think about that from this perspective, he was so right. And, and when I look in the world of rehab, we talk a lot about in the world of physical therapy and athletic training and like traditional clinical, physical rehab, the the outcomes are bleak to be honest. The outcomes are mediocre at best, like six to seven outta 10 patients maybe get better and it takes them eight to 12 weeks, if not longer, and that mediocrity. What happens is a lot of patients actually get lost along the way. They just stopped going. Because patients, people in general, like, why would you continue to do something if you're not seeing the results?
Right? And so they leave their, their clinical regimented rehab, whether it's with an athletic trainer. Or whether it's with a physical therapist and they seek other care and the care that they often seek is with the chiropractor, or they go to Pilates and you'll hear over and over from those patients of basically stories of, I failed rehab at a physical therapy clinic, or I went to see my athletic trainer and they couldn't help me.
Or a combination of those two, honestly, for a lot of my athletes. And they'll say, but I started doing Pilates, and then everything felt better, or I started doing going to the chiropractor and I started finally feeling better or some other scenarios. I started doing yoga and I started feeling better depending on the type of yoga, because some yoga is very much like Pilates in that it emphasizes spinal mobility over everything.
And that's the other thing that chiropractors do really well, is they emphasize and treat. Via the spine, and when we start to treat via the spine, we start changing these little micro adhesions throughout the spinal dura, throughout the denate ligaments, and we allow for improved cerebral spinal flow and decrease tension in the vertebrae. Also a visceral somatic effect to the organ. So sometimes the organs now have improved sympathetic flow to them from changing the input neurally at the spine. So the organs may start functioning better, and then this protective mechanism starts to improve, right? The the spine, this, this, this somatic reflex loop gets improved, so the tone around the spine changes, which further changes the mechanics and the tension at the denate ligaments.
The tension at the posterior longitudinal ligament of the spine, the tension at the dura, the sensor information at the little sinu vertebral nerves. And then this is reflected in a change of tension in the cranium. And when we have a change of tension in the cranium, we start affecting the reticular formation at the brainstem, which automatically is going to change our autonomic nervous system state, which is going to facilitate a more healing response.
And we're, when we're in that more parasympathetic response, we're going to be functioning better, feeling, better, decreased sensitivity, improved movement. Right? And so it, it has this reflexive effect. And I, this is what I wanted to say, right? Like, I was like, I don't need a whole episode to say this, but to reiterate, if you're not looking at the spine
outside of its first step of stability, right? That first sentence I just read you from this book, if you're not moving on to the next piece, the mobility piece, you're missing a lot. I often get asked from my athletes. or even just from clin, other clinicians or like in speaking engagement things, it's like if I, if there was like one thing I could have everybody do, what would it be?
And that is it. It's like improve your sensory information by giving more life to your feet, but then also improve everything by improving your spinal mobility, doing segmental spine mobility. Hands down. It's one of the most common exercises I prescribe to people is like a spinal rolldown, a segmental cat cow, ragdoll, da Vinci rolling.
All of these things that when you break it down are different ways and different planes of movement for segmental spine mobility. And then I even too, like this past, this past spring, I taught a beta version of the LTAP level two. And what filtered out of it was like this importance of continuing to dial in our assessment and treatment to the container.
And so we spent a lot of time going over spinal mechanics and how to assess spinal mechanics, how to treat the spine in a really powerful way to both influence the viscera, but also always it is part of the central nervous system, so you're also influencing the central nervous system and therefore you're also influencing the peripheral neurovascular system.
And so it's just a very good reminder that you have likely a lot of skills already that treats. The spine through movement, through manual therapy, through assessment. You're just maybe skipping it. And if I could reverse, if I could go back 20 something years in my career, one of the first things that like I was most uncomfortable about as a new grad was a spine assessment.
That doesn't, you don't graduate from school knowing a good spine assessment. If you, if you do now, congratulations, we didn't back then. Um, but from what I see in my classes, all the practitioners that come through my doors. The various ones, right? This is not just PTs, this is not just athletic trainers.
This is not just chiropractors. This is everybody, right? And then also, yeah, of course it's massage therapists and Pilates teachers and yoga teachers, because you're not getting any of that education, right? It's all gonna be brand new to you potentially. But it's like, yeah, it actually. Is those harder pieces, right?
Sometimes we skip learning the hard stuff and doing the hard stuff over and over again because it feels uncomfortable. And so we seek these courses. We seek these classes with these fancy treatment techniques using different tools or different modalities or different exercises when if we just got really good at understanding spinal mechanics and spinal movement and the value of moving through the spine versus stabilizing the spine.
I think we would be better off for all these wonderful reasons of how it connects to the central nervous system, how it connects to the viscera, and how it actually connects to this fundamental understanding that the spine. At the end of the day is our protector, and when it is not moving well, it means that we are stuck in this protection pattern.
And the way that we get unstuck in a protection pattern is to meet us where we are and then move in that space and around that space and sort of slowly open up the things. And this is like, again, like going back to this movement science piece and this segmental spine piece was just like so powerful.
To understand that like I got really good results when I started adding in psych mental spine mobility because it is so dang powerful. So that's it for now. Hope you enjoy this food for thought all about spine mobility and um, sure Joe will link in some tutorials that I mentioned too. So have a great day and we'll see you next week.