Diagnostic manual compression may help to complete the picture, and guide the choice of treatment. Contralateral BF activity will be visible as LGK-974 in vitro the contralateral ASIS moving upwards. This can easily be observed,

but the relevance of that observation remains unclear. In summary, problems with the ASLR may result from failing force closure. Palpation of the movements of both ilia, and of the long dorsal sacroiliac ligaments, as well as manual compression of the pelvis may help to complete the picture. The present study was limited to healthy subjects. Muscles were only studied on the right side, although right and left ASLR were performed. Four sets of TA data could not be used, and outliers were removed before statistical testing. Still, a consistent pattern of significant effects was found, suggesting that power was no major problem. The use of surface EMG for OI and OE in the present study may have affected results. Crosstalk between the OI and OE, and between TA and OI, cannot be excluded. On the other hand, fine-wire EMG of TA would only reflect the activity of the mid region of that muscle, whereas different functional roles of different VE-821 clinical trial parts of TA have been described (Urquhart and Hodges, 2005). Finally, only women were measured and generalization of our results to

the male population may not be straightforward. The ASLR consists of ipsilateral hip flexion, a contralateral hip extension moment, force closure by the lateral abdominal muscles, sagittal plane pelvis stabilization by the abdominal wall, and activity of contralateral transverse plane rotators of the pelvis. Problems with the ASLR may result from failing force closure. Adenosine Other tests are available to confirm, or falsify, the clinical hypothesis that the patient is having problems with force closure. Financial support

was obtained from Stryker Howmedica Nederland, Biomet Nederland, and the Dutch Society of Exercise Therapists Cesar and Mensendieck (VvOCM). PWH was supported by a Senior Principal Research Fellowship from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) of Australia. The Authors gratefully acknowledge Erwin van Wegen, Mark Scheper, Ilse van Dorst, Annemarie ten Cate, Hans van den Berg, Roland van Esch, and Tijmen van Dam for their help and suggestions. Jan Mens gave very useful suggestions for the interpretation of data, and Darren Beales was friendly enough to share his experiences with similar experiments. We express our thanks to Steve Barker for his skillfull linguistic editing of an earlier version of the text. This project could not have been performed without the stimulating initiative of the late Paul I.J.M. Wuisman, Professor of Orthopedic Surgery at the VU University medical centre.