LTAP™ Core Beliefs - A Replay
We’re revisiting the LTAP™ core beliefs in a replay episode on the Unreal Results podcast this week. I thought this would be a good time to talk about these again because the live online LTAP™ level 1 course is opening up for enrollment next week! In the episode, you’ll hear that the tenets of the LTAP™ are grounded in osteopathic principles and standard anatomy & physiology to shift the paradigm from a musculoskeletal focus to a whole organism approach. Just like in every LTAP™ class that I teach, this episode will challenge your deeply held beliefs and practices as a healthcare and movement provider, and ultimately lead to better patient outcomes.
Resources Mentioned In This Episode
Online LTAP™ Level 1 Spring 2025- Starts April 14th! enroll April 7th-10th!
Learn the LTAP™ In-Person in one of my upcoming courses
Considering the viscera as a source of musculoskeletal pain and dysfunction is a great way to ensure a more true whole body approach to care, however it can be a bit overwhelming on where to start, which is exactly why I created the Visceral Referral Cheat Sheet. This FREE download will help you to learn the most common visceral referral patterns affecting the musculoskeletal system. Download it at www.unrealresultspod.com
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Anna Hartman: Hey there, and welcome. I'm Anna Hartman, and this is Unreal Results, a podcast where I help you get better outcomes and gain the confidence that you can help anyone, even the most complex cases. Join me as I teach about the influence of the visceral organs and the nervous system on movement, pain, and injuries, all while shifting the paradigm of what whole body assessment and treatment really looks like.
I'm glad you're here. Let's dive in.
Hello, hello! Welcome to another episode of the Unreal Results podcast. Uh, this week we're doing another couple replays. Uh, as you may know, we're coming up on the doors being open for the next cohort of the online LTAP level one course. So I wanted to take the time to share an episode I recorded last fall, maybe, or even maybe even last spring on the core beliefs of the LTAP.
And specifically the LTAP level one course. So these core beliefs are basically, whenever I teach them in the courses, it's basically like these are the theorems of which your practical application experience will prove over the weekend. And they're based on osteopathic principles. They're based on, um, Standard anatomy and physiology, um, connections, so they are definitely, they're definitely founded in a lot of, like, I don't want to say evidence, because you know how I didn't love that word, but they're definitely founded in a lot of, like, solidness, but the whole point, and this is what I tell the people I teach, this is what I tell my athletes that I work with, I don't ever want you taking just my word for it.
I want you to like feel that it's true and you feel that it's true by doing the practical application and seeing how it works and seeing for yourself. Right? Like, some of the core beliefs we'll go over is about how the SI joint is influenced by the viscera and the nervous system. And those of you that are in the missing link this week, um, you are already experiencing that.
But that's what I mean by don't take my word for it like see it for yourself because I can tell you what I think is fact all day long But it's only going to be powerful if you believe it and since this assessment protocol requires us to operate in this different paradigm than we're used to, right? It requires us to operate in a whole organism paradigm versus just musculoskeletal, biomechanical, whole body paradigm that the industry is, like, standardized.
It requires some Um, like wading through a lot of layers of deeply held belief and dissonance that will come up when you challenge this belief. And so, um, I like to lay out these core beliefs of the low care test assessment protocol and of the course, just to sort of like, put my cards on the table and being like, this is what we're going to be exploring and this is what we're going to be proving or disproving.
Like any scientific model, the theorems, the hypotheses put out there are actually intended to be disproven. And in the quest to disprove them, we end up often proving them. So I hope you enjoy it. Um, and we'll see you next week.
So the LTAP level one, let's talk about the core beliefs. So the core beliefs of the LTAP level one are Number one or maybe not number one, but one of the core beliefs is that
Anna Hartman: The SI joint is like the, a great test to be a whole body test, to look at the whole body. The SI, also, the SI joint moves, it should move for that whole body function. And it's influence, it's mobility and function is influenced by every system in the body. The visceral, the neural, everything. In the musculoskeletal and so that's why it is a great area to use as a traffic cop So that's the same core belief that the results cheat code was then the next core belief is the tool you use The tool or technique you use for treatment matters less than being in the right spot so that's what it's all about figuring out how to be in the right spot and um Then, the next core belief is that the more specific and precise you can be with where that spot is, the better results you'll get, and the easier it is to then pick said tool or technique.
That's where your skill set comes in, of like me having a skill set of knowing visceral manipulation and neural manipulation, I can get a very precise and specific treatment technique in a very It's precise and specific spot. So when I can narrow down using the entire LTAP, like that, the body's protecting the right bronchus, I can then do a very specific assessment and treatment on the right bronchus, but just us getting to the right bronchus, right side of the chest and starting treatment on the right side of the chest, it might just be general cupping or general massage.
It might just be a stretch. It might be regular. Self massage it might just be like tapping, it could be Rib mobility. Literally could be anything like that's going to be really good, get really good results and the other, um, another core belief of the LTAP level one course based on that is also that we need to do, we need to figure out the sequence of treatment.
So every time we do a treatment we reassess and we still have the body direct us where we need to go And so what it unveils is this very unique treatment sequence for the patient in front of us and not just for the patient in front of us like that person, but that person on that day and I think that might be all the core beliefs Oh, the other core beliefs and I don't have it like listed in the manual.
So if you've taken the LTAP level one already, this might be a new, technically a new core belief because, um, it wasn't written down, but it's always something we talked about is like the body. We listened to the body using orthopedic tests with osteopathic principles and In order for this to be a good test and give us information, right?
To allow us to truly listen to the body. What makes a good test is something that has the ability to change. This is why the SI joint, this is why we use the SI joint as like the primary, the first LTAP test is because The SI joint mobility test is a good test on most people. There are incidences that it's not a good test, so then we don't use it.
But it's a good test because movement occurs there, but not too much. So it doesn't leave a whole lot of room for interpretation. And there, since there is movement there, it has the ability to change. And so we talk about this concept a lot through the courses, is like what makes a good test is something that has the ability to change.
So oftentimes when we're trying to figure out what organ it is, um, we're challenged with finding a good test to communicate that to us. And so it's like, you got to get creative sometimes, um, in what orthopedic tests you choose. And that's other thing that is like, I think really cool, but people have a challenge within the course is that means you can use any orthopedic tests you want with these osteopathic principles to get you to listen to the body, to figure out what organ it is.
Or even what scar or what tattoo it is, right? And this is, these are the inhibition tests we're talking about. So that's, um, another one of the core beliefs. And I feel like I'm missing some one. Oh, the other core belief that I'm missing, but is one we've talked about many times on the podcast. We talked about it last week.
We, I talked about it a lot and it's obviously a core belief of the class is that there is an organ hierarchy that the body has. And that organ hierarchy is based on just the anatomy of how we're set up. And that's also how the LTAP is set up. It's set up in this organ hierarchy, so we don't have to waste our time testing things that it's never going to be, because some organs are just more important than the others.
But with this said, just because some organs are more important than the others, it doesn't mean It's not a default or we would just treat it first, right? So because some people are like, well, if the central nervous system is queen, right? It's the most important thing. It makes sense. It's in the most closed container anatomically of our body.
So the body is telling us that it's queen, that it's most important. Most people would be like, well, can't I just always start with central nervous system? As a treatment and I'm like, well, you could, and don't get me wrong. If you do, you're probably, you know, it's probably going to be helpful, but it would be more helpful if we just started with the body.
Um, directed us because yes, our organ hierarchy matters, but what's more important from organ hierarchy in terms of sequencing is the. Organisms, protective pattern hierarchy and the layers. And so this concept I, I speak about, and if you listen to the results, she code replays on the podcast, you heard me talk about like this concept of like an onion, like we basically have like all of these protection patterns, because what makes us really cool, um, Really amazing actually is our ability to compensate and our ability to compensate is basically like every time we compensate for something It's like another layer of the onion getting added to us.
And so These layers of the onions are these protection patterns that every time we start the LTAP and we figure out where the body is protecting, it's the most outer layer of the onion. And so we, we do one treatment, we pull back that layer, and then now we have these other layers. And so these layers of protection pattern, that's the hierarchy in which we treat.
May or may not be the same as our organ hierarchy, our organ hierarchy allows us to understand prioritization in the body and the reason for protective patterns in general and, and the organization of the LTAP. So the way the LTAP tests are set up is the first test is like a traffic cop. It's a quick, quick and dirty test to be like.
The protection patterns in the viscera or the, or the nervous system, figure out where, or the protection pattern is in the peripheral nervous system, figure out where, or there's no protection pattern at this time right now that the body is not concerned with, just do whatever you want. Because the other thing that is important to realize is there's protection patterns all over the body all the time.
But sometimes the body is dealing with it better, right? They're in that. Compensation mode. And this is another sort of like mindfuck a little bit of like this idea that compensation actually isn't bad. The thing that is bad is when we lose the ability to compensate, when we lose the ability to compensate, these layers of protection patterns become more significant when we are able to compensate, we're like doing great.
And this again, like, you know, I always share the story about how the Verall Institute, when they said the muscles of the garbage can of the body, I laughed at it at first, but then after a while, I, I found myself like really offended by it because My whole belief system, the whole way I viewed the human experience, the human organism was through movement and muscles and joints.
And so, that like deeply offended me and then the next statement that they had made that sort of had a similar effect on me was this idea of compensation, because up in that context, Up until that point too, I was living in this sort of Shirley Sahrmann movement impairment syndrome, like lens of view and this like Ray Cook lens of view of, um, movement compensation, movement dysfunction was bad.
Like that's what we taught at Exos for years. I mean, I feel like the majority of people in sports medicine still teach that is that they're, you know, that the problem, you know, the thing that's creating the pain or the injury is like, uh, Leaky, you know, an energy leak or a movement inefficiency, uh, because of a movement compensation or a movement dysfunction.
And so this idea of that, the compensation compensating in general was not bad. It's actually what makes us very resilient was in. Was like, Ooh, really challenged this deeply held belief I had about compensation in general. And so that is a concept that you have to work through quite a bit in the, in the courses.
And, but then it, I realized it made really a lot of sense because when I look at my work with professional athletes versus like the occasional, like normal people I work with, and people are always asked what the difference is. Right. Between athletes and regular people. And I would say in general, the athletes have a greater, a greater capacity for compensation than non athletes do, and they can get away with a lot and, and it may, once I, Kind of accepted that too made so much sense because I really did used to kind of reflect back in the day of like man Basketball players, especially when they came to see me they are movement dysfunction real bad a lot of them but on the court they move so beautifully and Also, oftentimes they're like pain like their knee pain their Achilles pain their hip pain their back pain shoulder pain Whatever it is whatever pain would feel better and the movement compensation would still be there.
And so I did have this internal struggle. A lot of times it was like, that doesn't make sense. And so when I, when I heard this, that quote from John Pierre about compensation, it finally was like, ah, that makes so much sense. That makes so much sense. We have this ability like this is loss of ability to compensate.
And so, you know, this goes back to that onion kind of concept that I was talking about is just like throughout our lifetime. We become a pretty thick onion and that's a good thing. And sometimes through treatment. We're just. You know, taking some layers off and making things light again, or more resilient.
So, those are the main core beliefs of the LTAP. And, and I wanted to share them, and I'm sure if you've been listening to me for a while, these are not new concepts, I talk about them all the time. Um, but I always lay that out in the first day of the LTAP courses, because it's like our standard operating procedure of
that we're using through the scientific process. And so the scientific process is like having a belief and then creating a model that tests our beliefs to see if it holds up or not. And that's, so that's sort of what I always tell people is like, okay, here are the core beliefs of the class. It's like the learning objectives.
Really the core beliefs of the LTAP level one are those things. And then now, I want to teach you assessments and give you space to practice the assessments so you can see for yourselves that these core beliefs are true, instead of just taking my word for it. I never wanted you to take my word for it.
And this is also, whenever I say this about taking my word for it, I'm like, Damn, I really need to remember, like, I need to go back and watch the movie Tommy Boy and memorize the quote that he uses. Is that Tommy Boy? Or is it black sheep? No, it's Tommy Boy. Um, the quote that he uses, Chris Farley, when he's like trying to sell the brake pads, and he's talking about like, taking the butcher's word for it, and he messes it up, and it's kind of funny.
Um, this is the moment in every class that I'm like, Oh, I really need to remember that quote. So, maybe LTAP coming up, Online or in person, I'll have done that homework. Anyways, so yes, so throughout the weekend, or throughout the six weeks, this is what I challenge people to do. Like, this is, this is the, actually the hardest part of the education.
It's not the exercises. Or the interventions. It's not the assessment. It's not even finding a good test. It's not understanding the visceral anatomy. It is the cognitive dissonance that happens when we're challenging these deeply held beliefs, and we're learning and we're seeing these core beliefs. In action for ourselves and literally having to question everything we've done up until that point, and it can be a really uncomfortable experience.
And I think I shared this after the Arizona course, but it's like, in a 2 day course, it's like day 1 is everybody's great until the end of the day. And then they are like, What the fuck just happened and then Sunday, we start at what the fuck just happened and we build ourselves up to the end of the weekend where people are like, this is amazing.
I can't wait to practice. And so in the six weeks, it's a little bit harder. I'd say the six weeks alone, it's a little bit harder because it's, You know, we're doing it one chunk at a time and so in some sense the slowness allows you to like Rumble with that cognitive dissonance but also sometimes the slowness allows us to sort of just Slide back into status quo slide back into our comfortableness and not Dance, not be in that rumble with the cognitive dissonance.
And so that's something important. And this is like, this is why I encourage people to use Voxer and reach out to me for like the actual mentorship piece, because the mentorship piece is helping you through this cognitive dissonance of this change in this period, like this paradigm shift in this change of thinking.
So that's where the real learning, that's where the real growth and like, results in like professional development. That's where it is when it, when it comes to this course, it's in that rumble with your cognitive dissonance, when you're changing the paradigm and when you're open to seeing it in real time, in your patients, right in front of you each day, proving these core release, improving, That when you use osteopathic principles with orthopedic tests, it's just this wonderful combination that allows you to truly listen to the body and let the body guide the, uh, whole healing experience as it should.