Spinal Mechanics
Physiology of the Spine
Osteopath and Author John Bayliss practices Osteopathy in Surrey, England. He graduated from ‘The College of Osteopaths’ in 1988 and was one of the first Osteopaths in the United Kingdom to become registered with the ‘General Osteopathic Council’.
John has always had a strong interest in engineering and in his early days he used to draw up house, extension and conversion plans. His other interest is in psychology and in the 1970’s became a founder member of ‘The British College of Hypnotherapy’. But his main interest is in the mechanics of the human musculo-skeletal frame.
Osteopath John Bayliss DO
Despite the disparaging and unfair remarks by the medical profession, Osteopaths more often than not are able to routinely help relieve back and peripheral joint pain in a relatively small number of sessions, more often than not when orthodox medicine had failed. So getting the patients out of pain was not the issue. The issue was in how long the relief from pain lasted and what lasting changes actually took place in the skeletal frame, as this was not always readily obvious.
John set out to find answers to these questions. Sods law states that the factor you thought was your constant is usually the source of your problem. So John started at the beginning by examining with fresh eyes the generally recognized spinal mechanics that manipulations are based on. But none on the theories made any logical sense and none worked in harmony with the other. The theories were littered with contradictions. For example Fryette's law states that the lumbar spine rotates and side-bends or side-bends and rotates. But to what degree? *‘Gregson and Lucas’ who undertook examinations under anaesthesia found only one degree mobility per segmental rotation. That is not ‘real world’ rotation. So in the Fryette right-right theory the precursory rotation had to be coming from somewhere else; John was able to demonstrate that the initial rotation was actually coming from the pelvis.
John had long been aware of the importance side-shift played in locking joints from his earlier work on complicated lesions, and by looking at the sacroiliac joints, not in isolation but at as part of a much bigger picture, a whole new vista of discoveries unveiled. Using his plastic spine he was able come up with some revolutionary new theories that not only worked together throughout the body, they complimented each other. Further John’s theories could explain the action of breathing, rotation, side-bending and walking. Try applying the Fryette's theories, the ‘Three pole’ or ‘Nutation theories’ to those topics and see how far you get? The problem would seem to have been that all the current theories were worked out ‘joint focused’ and in isolation and with what appears to be no regard to real world movements.
From this, John was able to calculate how joints subluxate and form distinctive patterns in the skeletal frame. He then went on to discover PPT manipulation. PPT is a new type of really effective manipulation based an entirely new set of protocols.
Discovering PPT’s was just a matter of reversing these forces. PPT manipulations use minimal force, with no contorted body positions or stress to the patients, there is not even a click. (joints do not click when they subluxate therefore there is no reason for them so make any noise, when they are corrected) Research has shown that many patients do not even know that they have been manipulated and PPT’s are really powerful. Not only this, so far all indications are that the postural changes are much longer lasting.
John’s theories were filmed in DVD format and show in great detail how joints articulate and how subluxations/osteopathic lesions are created.
In 2007 his long awaited and technically acclaimed book ‘The Theory of Synergetic Spinal Mechanics and PPT Manipulation’ was published. A year later a revised and updated version of his book with five additional chapters was published as ‘The Theory of Synergetic Spinal Mechanics and PPT Manipulation -Edition 2’.
*‘Gregson and Lucas’: reference ‘Kapandji’ volume 3 ‘The physiology of the Spine’ published by Churchill Livingstone