Thursday 26 November 2009

PASSIVE/ACTIVE insufficiency



Passive Insufficiency - Occurs with 2 joint muscles and refers to the fact that these muscles cannot stretch maximally across both joints at the same time!


Example: Hamstrings may limit hip flexion when the knee is in full extension since they are maximally stretched in this position.


However... If the knee is flexed passively then the hip will be able to flex further - because the stretch on the hamstrings has been slackened.


Active Insufficiency - 2 joint muscles cannot contract maximally across both joints at the same time!


Example: Make a fist (finger flexors) you can make a strong fist when your wrist is in a neutral of slightly extended position. But when you flex your wrist with a clenched fist you loose some of the grip. This is because the finger flexors are unable to shorten any more than they have and so begin to extend and lose grip strength.

9 comments:

  1. Hi Jay,

    I just found your site. It's great. Hope you can find the time to keep it up. I am a new blogger (1 year), which I entered due to my abdominal aortic aneurysm, but now I do it for fun and down the road income (early days). I used a figure from your site for tomorrow's post (they come out each day at 6:00 am). It is the stretch reflex diagram. Hope you don't mind. I did link it to your site, which I recommended, and I'll do the same on the other media I follow.

    Hope you are well.

    Thanks again.

    -k @FitOldDog

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hey thank you very much for this post...
    It really helped me...
    :-) :-)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Very significant Information for us, I have think the representation of this Information is actually superb one. This is my first visit to your site. Physiotherapist

    ReplyDelete
  4. Exanples of active insufficiency in lower limb?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Lay down on your stomach. Bend your knee so your foot is in the air. Have someone try to bend your leg further while you resist. Should be relatively easy. Now lay down on your stomach, bend your knee, but also lift your thigh up as well by extending your hip. Now when someone tries to bend your leg further it should feel more difficult because your hamstring shortened when your flexed your hip and lifted your thigh off of the ground. Hope this helps!

      Delete