by Gonzalo Cámara-Navarro
The versatility of T-BOW® enhances its application in a multitude of fields within physiotherapy, such as the prevention and recovery of sports injuries, postural re-education, treatment with muscle chain methods or scoliosis treatments.
Applications of T-BOW® in Physiotherapy
T-BOW®, as a multifunctional training element, allows us to take advantage of its characteristics to improve, expand and optimize physiotherapy treatments by integrating into our usual intervention techniques.
Spine
T-BOW® is a very useful tool in any treatment on the spine, both to enhance and stretch the muscles and to work on postural correction. The curvature of the T-BOW® in the arched step position provides us with an ideal anatomical adaptation for toning and stretching work, and also offers us a greater range of movement compared to a flat surface. In this position we will be able to work on the physical muscles, improving the dynamic capacities of the trunk muscles. It is also useful in the treatment of scoliosis, as well as in the application of muscle chain treatment. The very reactive arc instability in the rocker position helps us in the work of the deep muscles, in charge of the tonic function, improving postural stability and helping us to energize the intersegmental coordination that allows us a better control of the mobile segment thanks to greater stability of the fixed segment.
Muscle Toning
The work options for muscle toning in the extremities using T-BOW® are very wide, since the two positions of the arc, together with the use of T-Bands, multiply the variables of resistance, level of load of the limbs and orientation of them during toning work.
At the level of the lower limbs it allows us to work in very early phases of recovery from knee injuries, working in a closed or semi-closed kinetic chain (CCC), favoring a coordinated work of agonists and antagonists that provides more physiological and stable movements. For example, in quadriceps toning exercises in CCC the hamstrings are activated, which in anterior cruciate ligament injuries prevents the anterior displacement of the tibia, which would cause tension in the damaged or newly repaired ligament. Quadriceps toning exercises in CCC activate the tendons of the goose paw, reducing the external rotation of the tibia, which would externally displace the kneecap during the extension of the knee.
Postural Correction and Injury Prevention
As the creator of the T-BOW®, Sandra Bonacina, indicates, a particularly useful application of this multifunctional arch is to work on the correct functional alignment of the lower limb. Proper alignment of the hip-knee-toe axis can correct and prevent a wide variety of musculoskeletal disorders such as pyramidal syndrome, patellar chondropathy and misalignment of plantar support.
Proprioception
The very reactive instability of the T-BOW® in the rocker position, as well as the variations in the physiological alignment of the joints that we can perform in the arched step position, is a very useful stimulus, both at the level of the mechanoreceptors and the central nervous system. These uses of T-BOW® combined with the use of T-Bands as destabilizing external forces will make us substantially improve the patient's proprioceptive and coordinative skills.
Unlike other heavier instruments, with flat surfaces and soft contact parts, the T-BOW® has special advantages at a proprioceptive level: its elasticity makes it very reactive to any movement, its stable and unstable support possibilities on its concave and convex surfaces and its narrow edges, which stimulate bilateral support control and segmental differentiation. This reproduces the surfaces and biomechanical conditions in which we practice potentially harmful gestures. Typical examples are T-BOW® swings in support of feet or hands, as well as the use of the convex surface to work the proprioception of the ankle in monopodal support through coordination exercises, or the application of destabilizing forces with T-Bands.
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Gonzalo Cámara-Navarro
Diploma in Physiotherapy and Graduate in Physiotherapy (Autonomous University of Madrid). Physiotherapist in the Spanish Basketball Federation (1997-2007), has collaborated with the Spanish Swimming Federation, physiotherapist of motorsport pilots of different categories (2004-2017), physiotherapist of the COE. Expert in motor control and therapeutic exercise for the cervical area and scapular waist. Co-Founder & CEO at HEWEGO since 2019 and manager of Servi Physis since 2010. Advisor and teaching physiotherapist at T-BOW® Fit since 2007, having created the motor rehabilitation, injury prevention and physiotherapy courses with T-BOW®. Member of the EEB Sport Training Barcelona technical team.
