The 📝Movement Assessment Glossary collects the posture, gait, and movement-screen terms that appear in a Somatic Realignment Therapy 📝Movement Assessment and in the protocols built from it, defined in plain language for clients reading their own results.
Glossary
A
- 📝Active Range of Motion — how far you can move a joint under your own power.
- 📝Active Straight Leg Raise — lying flat and lifting one straight leg as high as it goes without the other leg or the pelvis lifting, which shows hamstring length and pelvic control.
- 📝Antalgic Gait — a walking pattern that shortens the time spent on a painful side.
- 📝Anterior Pelvic Tilt — the pelvis tipped forward so the low back arches more and the belly moves forward.
- 📝Arch Collapse — the inner arch of the foot dropping toward the floor under load, also called pronation.
- 📝Asymmetry — a side-to-side difference in range, strength, or control.
B
- 📝Baseline — the first set of measurements, kept so every later session can be compared against it.
- 📝Bear Crawl Hold — hands and knees with the knees hovering just off the floor, used to see core and shoulder-blade control.
- 📝Butt Wink — the pelvis tucking under at the bottom of a squat.
C
- 📝Cervical Rotation — turning the head left and right, normally about 70 to 80 degrees each way.
- 📝Compensation — one area doing extra work because another is restricted or weak.
- 📝Contralateral Pelvic Drop — the opposite hip dropping when you stand on one leg, a sign the standing hip is not stabilizing.
D
- 📝Dead Bug — lying on the back and lowering the opposite arm and leg while keeping the low back flat, a core-control screen.
- 📝Dorsiflexion — bringing the top of the foot toward the shin; limited ankle dorsiflexion sends more load into the knee.
E
- 📝End Range — the last part of a joint's available motion, where movement quality is judged.
F
- 📝Forward Head Posture — the head resting ahead of the shoulders when seen from the side.
- 📝Functional Movement — bodyweight patterns such as squatting, hinging, and stepping that show how joints work together.
G
- 📝Gait — the pattern of walking, watched for arm swing, hip drop, and foot placement.
- 📝Glute Bridge — lying on the back and lifting the hips, used to see whether the glutes or the hamstrings do the work.
H
- 📝Heel Rise — the heels lifting off the floor in a squat, usually from limited ankle range.
- 📝Hinge Pattern — bending at the hips with a 📝neutral spine, as in a deadlift.
- 📝Hip Hike — one side of the pelvis lifting to clear the leg, a compensation for hip weakness.
- 📝Hyperextension — a joint moving past straight.
- 📝Hyperkyphosis — an increased rounding of the upper back.
- 📝Hyperlordosis — an increased arch in the low back.
K
- 📝Knee Valgus — the knee caving inward toward the midline under load.
- 📝Knee Varus — the knee bowing outward under load.
M
- 📝Mobility — how freely a joint moves through its range with control.
- 📝Motor Control — the nervous system's ability to coordinate a movement, judged separately from strength or flexibility.
- 📝Movement Screen — a fixed set of tests run the same way each time so results can be compared to baseline.
N
- 📝Neutral Spine — the spine's natural curves held without extra arch or rounding.
O
- 📝Overhead Reach — raising both arms overhead, palms forward, to see where the arc breaks or the ribs flare.
P
- 📝Passive Range of Motion — how far a joint moves when someone else moves it for you.
- 📝Pattern — a repeated way of organizing the body that shows up across several tests.
- 📝Plumb Line — an imaginary vertical line used to compare landmarks such as the ear, shoulder, hip, knee, and ankle.
- 📝Posterior Pelvic Tilt — the pelvis tucked under so the low back flattens.
- 📝Proprioception — the sense of where the body is in space, tested by balancing with the eyes closed.
R
- 📝Rib Flare — the lower ribs lifting and opening forward, often when the arms go overhead or the core disengages.
- 📝Romberg Test — standing with the feet together and eyes closed for thirty seconds to see how much the body sways.
S
- 📝Scapular Winging — the inner edge of the shoulder blade lifting away from the ribcage.
- 📝Single-Leg Balance — standing on one leg with eyes open and then closed to test proprioception and ankle control.
- 📝Single-Leg Squat — squatting on one leg, the single most informative screen for hip, knee, and ankle control.
- 📝Stability — the ability to hold a joint's position while other parts of the body move.
- 📝Step-Down — lowering from a box on one leg to see how the knee tracks.
T
- 📝Tall Kneeling Hold — kneeling upright for twenty seconds to see what the pelvis and spine do with the ankles taken out of the picture.
- 📝Thomas Test — lying at the edge of a table with one knee held to the chest to see hip-flexor length in the hanging leg.
- 📝Toe Walk and Heel Walk — walking on the toes and then on the heels to check calf and shin strength.
W
- 📝Wall Angel — sliding the arms up a wall while the back, head, and arms stay in contact with it, a test of upper-back mobility and shoulder-blade control.