Clinical Pearl: Cervical Retraction with Extension

You all hear me preach end range x3 often enough. The following variation on the cervical retraction with extension often helps patients who cannot do the movement in WB to get to end range.

However, are they really getting to end range?

Thanks to Frank Ward, PT, DipMDT, and soon to be FAAOMPT for showing me this was while he was doing mentoring hours in our clinic.

Holding the upper traps and lightly pulling P/A often takes away a lot of the CT junction and upper thoracic discomfort as the patient works toward end range loading. Frank showed me that if you let go of the traps at end range, a bit more motion can be coaxed out of the movement. This is helpful for derangement reduction force.