16/11/2025
A bit about two people who made a huge contribution to manual therapy and the study of fascia. A teacher and a student.
But who are these people anyway?
And after this, I’ll retell the book Born to Walk the same way I did with Anatomy Trains.
How does that sound; interested?
Thomas Myers: the fascial provocateur.
Manual therapist, anatomist, body philosopher.
A student of Ida Rolf, Feldenkrais, and other bodywork gurus.
The man who made fascia fashionable long before Instagram turned it into a trend.
Creator of the Anatomy Trains concept; the idea that muscles are connected in long myofascial lines, “trains”, that distribute load and shape the way we move.
Myers is the strategist, philosopher, and architect of bodily logic.
He drew the map.
James Earls: the biomechanics of movement specialist.
Body therapist, trained by Myers.
Less about anatomical poetry, more about practical biomechanics.
His strength is explaining movement the way it happens in a living body, not on a plastic model.
He specialises in gait analysis, foot dynamics, and how force travels through the body in motion.
Earls is the analyst, mechanic, and engineer of human movement.
He shows how the map works in real time.
Two books, two levels of understanding the body.
Here’s the important bit: how these two books differ, and why you need both.
Myers’ Anatomy Trains.
This is fascia as the body’s infrastructure.
What’s inside: the concept of fascial lines; superficial front and back, spiral, functional etc.;
muscles as long kinematic chains;
foundations of postural biomechanics;
patterns of tension, compensation, and adaptation;
principles of working with tissues (manually and through movement).
What this book is for:
Understanding why the body moves the way it moves, and why pain shows up where it shows up.
Main idea: The body is a network, not a pile of parts.
To understand pain, follow the line, not the point.
What’s the book like?
Philosophical, conceptual, deep, almost meditative in places.
Lots of anatomy, lots of diagrams, lots of tension logic.
This is the foundation.
Earls’ Born to Walk
This is how that infrastructure works in the most fundamental human movement - walking.
What’s inside: How the foot becomes a spring;
how force rolls through fascial lines;
rotations, extension, gait phases;
the role of the arms, ribs, pelvis;
patterns that create pain and fatigue;
exercises and micro-movements to restore natural gait.
What this book is for:
Understanding how to optimise walking, the primary motor pattern of the human species.
Main idea: We’re born for a springy, natural, powerful gait. Modern life destroys it. But we can get it back.
What’s the book like?
More practical, dynamic, alive.
Not anatomy on the table; anatomy in motion.
The biggest difference
Myers says: “Here are the wires.”
Earls says: “Here’s how the current flows.”
Myers is about structure.
Earls is about process.
Myers is the static logic of lines.
Earls is the dynamic logic of the step.
Myers shows why everything is connected.
Earls shows how to use those connections.
How these books work together
In one sentence:
Anatomy Trains gives you the map.
Born to Walk shows you how to drive on it.
Meaning:
Myers explains why the back line pulls on the neck.
Earls explains that during walking the back line must lengthen and recoil like a spring, if it doesn’t, the neck will keep pulling.
Myers describes the spiral lines.
Earls shows how those spirals come alive through pelvic rotation and arm swing.
Myers talks about tension balance.
Earls shows how that balance creates a smooth, rolling gait.
Together they give you a complete understanding of the human as a dynamic fascial system.
