STARTING POSITION

Myofunktional Exercise  Collect ion

Application:

This chapter gives a general description of a collective group of exercises and details which are sharing the here described facts.

Contents:

The Starting Position is located as the General Position ahead of each session and as Introductory Exercise at the beginning of each single exercise.

As the General Position it effectuates a preconditioning of the body to the training session.

It may generally be assumed that all patients enter the office (practice) with a non-optimal body posture.

For our MFT-patients this is the more true as they do suffer from neuro-muscular dysfunctions. Through our request of the General Position we do call the attention of our patients to their body -  a fundamental condition for completing an exercise in the training session.

Moreover this should be an urgent advice for the home practicing as well.

What do these postures and positions involve in particular? This can be easily compared on the corresponding sketch. For sports as well as physiotherapeutic exercises it is quite essential to equilibrate the upright standing body with legs and feet correctly without allowing excessive and possibly unilateral muscle tensions.

As we look after the shoulder-head-region it might be appropriate for the MFT-Training to find a respective sitting position. A stool may doe it, better would serve and has proven a Gym-Ball.

The main point with this is that the thighs are held parallel to the floor while the shanks stand vertical without carrying the burden of the body; the posture includes the organism from head to feet.

The description for this is given in the chapter SITTING-POSITION.

For our MFT, of course, a respective unclamped and correct (physiologic) posture of the Stomatognathic System with the corresponding description in the chapter RESTPOSITION.

For our MFT again of special interest in this connection is the position

-          of the mandible – see ,DRAWER-IN’- EXERCISE (CHIN-IN)

-          of the lips – see ,M’-POSITION and

-          of the tongue (tip), the  ,L’-POSITION.

The last two mostly are summed up in the ,L-M’-POSITION, the Basic Position for our immediate working field, the Stomatognathic System.

So much about the general arrangement.

In the discussion above the respective special entry exercise for the current work-out was mentioned; in the exercise description it is operated under the term ‘Previous Exercise’ or short ‘Pre-exercise’. This is always the necessary or recommended application which the current exercise is based on.

We, for example, can not ask a patient that, in this current main exercise, he would have to place the tongue tip against his incisal papilla when he never before had thought of being able to place the tongue at a distinct place in his mouth which, in deed is not so unusual. In front of certain tongue exercises it may be necessary to practice the TONGUE-TIP-ORIENTATION. In this respect most exercises demand certain settings from the organism and these are pointed  out in the exercise descriptions under the paragraph ‘Previous Exercise’ and will be carried out either in a short form directly in the current session or may be seen as a recollection for on what base the current exercise is set up.