A Case Study: Pregnant female in her third trimester with tension in the chest, neck, and jaw from side-sleeping.

Oct 27

2 min read

From time to time, I will talk about a client I work with and the Danaher Method approach I use with them.

Here's the Client Profile for this feature:

A pregnant woman in her third trimester presenting with tension in the chest, neck, and jaw from side-sleeping.

Presenting Traits:

Wakes up with tightness in her chest, neck and shoulders due to side sleeping
Popping joints, had ongoing but increased in pregnancy
Posture beginning to round forward/forward head
Only has 20 minutes a day for exercise
Came to TDM looking for help with her rounding posture and tightness in the chest & shoulders

THE DANAHER METHOD APPROACH TO THIS CLIENT:

In Our Session Together We:

Started with chest opening stretches
Used the chair for flexion, extension & rotation, objective being to bring movement into her spine but doing so avoiding too much rotation given she’s in her 3rd trimester
Educated her on the end range of her movements and not locking out the joint (relaxin hormone enhanced in 3rd trimester)
Gave her a breathing practice focused on the contraction and release of the breathing muscles and “inner unit”. This will be the foundation of her core work.
Practiced fascia release with yoga balls that she can do at home

Based on our session together, I recommend:

3 classes from the TDM online class library for her to do every other day, alternating the classes.
We will meet 1x per month to check in on her progress.

These are the classes that I recommend for this client:

1. Debloat - Pregnancy Edition