Operator Positioning

So let's talk about operator positioning. So this is our position in relation to the patient. This is clock positions. So the recommendations that I've had that I am about to show you are based on research. So there have been studies that have plugged a little electrodes into practitioners to measure the muscle activity in these different clock positions. And just remember we want to have the least amount of muscle engagement, right. We wanna be using our skeleton as much as we can and they have found in those studies that with us behind the patient, that's gonna be the most neutral and the least amount of muscle activity for us. So whether you're a righty or a lefty, that's going to be that 11 to 1 o'clock position. You can use that 9 or 3 o'clock position, but you wanna make sure that you're squared up to your patient and more on this later. But what we don't want to do is that 7 or 5 o'clock position where you are side sitting and I don't see this. I see this sometimes with dentists, but most of the time I see it with hygienists. We're very guilty of this. But when I say squared up, you want your head, shoulders, hips, torso, knees, feet, everything pointed in the same direction. When you're doing, the side sitting, typically your legs are pointed up towards the head of the patient, but your torso is facing the patient and so you're doing a twist. You're also abducting your arm, you're leaning your head to the side, your wrist are typically doing crazy things, so we really want to avoid that 7 or 5 o'clock position. Again, I'm a realist. Sometimes I find myself in these positions still, especially when I'm working on the lower anteriors. It's okay to be in that position for a little bit, but you don't want to live there. So if you notice that you're doing the side sitting thing, if you can't avoid that, that's okay, just know that you want to get out of that position as quickly as possible.