The Human organism thru out our evolution has built a biological blueprint for us to follow. It has been perfected over the course of human history, our skeletal musculature system, our fascial system and our nervous system all together in unity have been constructed to serve a set of main principles. The reason why our musculature, the investing fascia and the nerves that embed into it are design
ed and built the way it is, is because something has drove it into existence. These are the functions that engineered our biomechanical design. The biomechanical design was encoded with 2 systems. One being our "Myofascial sling system" which is also referred to as the "Locomotive system" and The second system helps control and stabilize thru locomotion our "Deep Stabilizing system". Now it's apparent that we have other native functions that have helped us survive such as squatting, climbing and crawling but these functions do not utilize fully our Myofascial slings. The locomotion system has been carefully developed and adapted itself around its environment. As we know we live in a 3 dimensional environment which means that our locomotion system has developed in all planes and its important to know that the locomotion system functions in each plane all at once, in other words human locomotion is multiplanar and its programmed to be fully operational when the Human locomotion system can reciprocate in all planes. To clarify Human Locomotion system is also referred to as the "Gait cycle". Gait is our Walking and Running Mechanics. Human locomotion is a servant of nature just like any organism. It is clear that our musculature and the fascial system that gives muscle a purpose was developed for rotation in the horizontal plane. To note, we live in a 3D Field that consists of longitudinal (vertical) and latitudinal (horizontal) vectors. Our body is programmed to be positioned with certain anatomical pathways, these pathways create specific kinetic chains that help us coordinate thru the horizontal vectors while having chains of muscle connections that stabilize us in the vertical vectors. Rotation or Spirals is what governs motion allowing motion to not be disperse but rather directed, think about how hurricanes work or pistons in a car they work in a spiral motion. In addition spirals seem to be the most effective way for organic life to form 2 sides, think of DNA. So anyways I digress if Rotation governs motion into a direction then that means our Myofascial Sling systems is wrapped up in a spiral formation. When we observe the human gait cycle we are able to understand that the human gait cycle involves rotation at the trunk using diagonal chains of muscle and fascia linking the entire structure into synchronized horizontal movement, also referred to as contralateral reciprocation. As we all know we are Bipedal organisms and in order for bipedals to be efficient movers, we evolutionarily adopted a specific pattern of motion called Contralateral. There are four patterns humans are capable of doing:
-Bilateral: During static or in some cases in motion Both sides or extremities (limbs) are moving simultaneously example: Squat
-Unilateral: During Static motion describes a one sided position, example: lunge
-Contralateral: When our body, in motion is reciprocating on opposite sides thru rotation
-Ipsilateral: When our body, in motion is reciprocating on the same side (opposite of contralateral) or the Movement version of Unilateral and works thru lateral motions. Its important to know that, anatomically, our body has modeled itself around this contralateral pattern. That means our musculature, our connective tissues and the nervous system all serve and prioritize this pattern. These anatomical coordinated pathways, also known as myofascial chains, were defined by Tom Meyers in his book Anatomy Trains, using Buckminster Fuller’s theory of Tensegrity as a guiding principle. Recently we as humans decided to venture outside our gait cycle unlike any organism has In the past. That is because we as humans are able to concieve and create movements that is outside of our gait cycle due to our highly developed conscious brain allowing us to exacute movement patterns beyond our biological evolved Myofascial sling system. Our current environment and behaviors have caused dysfunctions in most of society causing these anatomical pathways to change, leading to dysfunctional and inefficient motor patterns. With every movement that we make, there should be a precise pattern that every anatomical pathway of our body follows. This pattern would allow our body to be as efficient as possible moving through space. These movement patterns must then consciously be mastered which then through practice and repetition will become engrained in the subconscious. This in turn helps adapt to stressful situations when we are left to fight or flight as now those motor patterns of running, throwing & fighting (via the myofascial sling systems) have been hardwired into our biomechanics. It is important to note that our body works hard in adapting to any movement and mental behavior you give it. When the movement you are trying to master is able to adapt to tensegrity then your body becomes like a well oiled machine. Tensegrity simply describes the body as a traction suit, connected all together by rubber bands. Improving tensegrity means your adapting to be more elastic like which is the essence of youthfulness. In order to improve ones tensegrity the movement would require our biomechanics to involve the anterior, posterior, lateral and spiral chains to operate and communicate efficiently between one another. In addition the movement that is involved requires ballistic recoiling and catapulting like reactions. When the movement becomes linear and one dimensional absent of tensegrity. Then our fascial tissues will anchor itself to one region of the body and will be universally dependent on that region for all the movements that you do, which in turn increases your risk of injury. Hypermobility (too flexible) and Hypomobility (too stiff) is the result of losing tensegrity. Anyone who loses tensegrity is what I call a Hyperflaccid mover. Hyperflaccid represents a joint function absent of a nueromyofascial driver which essentially means loss of full function. Certain Hypermobility motions can represent functionality as long as it is proportionate to the rest of the body it's when it becomes disproportionate where we see problems, so saying hyperflaccid in place of hypermobile is a more descriptive way to describe dysfunction. You see any motion that you potentiate should encompass the use of all the planes of motion at one time. One plane of motion is the driver to all the other planes of motion. If all the planes of motion do not reciprocate horizontally, then gravity induces vertical compression, establishing dysfunctions. The benchmark of functionality is gait and any movements that you master that compromises the functionality of gait is wiring in more dysfunctional behaviors. In my opinion the most intelligent idea in your training program is to codify and formalize the gait cycle and create resistance protocols that respect our main principles or as I call it the Big 4 (Walking, Running, Standing and throwing)
Movements that respect gait are Punching, Kicking, Wood chopping or any Swinging mechanic because it takes into account our sling system. Others that might be beneficial can be activities such as Wrestling as some of the force vectors involved in moving a human body around are similar to that of gait. Certain Dancing routines, one that comes to mind is hip hop dancing, can also be considered respectful and can be considered complimentary to slinging. The activities that seem to steer us away from gait if done "extensively" is Rowing, Cycling, Boarding, Olympic lifting, Climbing, Gymnastics, Yoga and Bodybuilding. The reason for this is that the methods that go into these movements and the positions we find ourselves in, either deviates us or distracts us from the Big 4. Now does this mean we should not be doing any of these styles and methods of movements that I've mentioned above? The Answer is no, you absolutely can as long as it is not wiring in bad behaviors and faulty adaptions. I understand that a lot of these movements are dear to some people allowing them to express themselves thru the movements and activities they enjoy. But these activities come with a caveat, they have a higher percentage for long term externalities (i.e consequences). Ideally in life it be smart to limit the negative externalities you are exposed to so in the future, as you get older, you're left with less pain and problems down the road with sustained youthfulness. You see we need to learn to recognize the difference between what we need and what we want. I think it's important in life to find a balance between what we need and what we want. Most commonly in fitness we want to look good; lose weight, gain muscle and that's perfectly fine. It's 100% possible to build muscle, lose weight, look good all the while focusing on what needs to be done, when the training protocol is done right. What we need is to improve tensegrity and build on our Big 4 functions in life, Its important to know what that means. Majority of your training should Facilitate around strengthening and conditioning these main traits once you've mastered these then and only then you can venture out into trying other facets of training as a secondary program. My main concern is that majority of ones journey to looking good comes with a price. Most training programs are oversaturated with trivial motions and misconceptual training methods that could possibly lead you away from tensegrity, some methods are effective in their own rights but most are deviating you from good health. Credits to:
Naudi Aguilar from Functional patterns
David Weck from Weckmethod
Thomas Myers
Robert Schliep
Buckminster fuller
James Earl
Andry Vleeming
Serge Gracovetsky
David Lesondak
Kelly Sterret from The ready state
