Daily Maestroism

DM #130

Friday, September 30th, 2016

DM #130: Away from the mechanical and towards the neurological we go!
My boy @biomechanicaldetective has been doing some absolutely ? posts about just this, so check him out for some solid examples of what I’m talking about. Work smarter, not harder, right?
Traditional schooling often provides us with an approach to movement and the human body that is very mechanical, and fails to give the nervous system the respect that it deserves. Now, don’t get me wrong. Sometimes stuff is legitimately weak. Too small and not enough proteins to produce any kind of force, or control whatever motions it’s supposed to be controlling. But this is not always the case, and I would contend that this is not usually the case. Remember, you don’t have to look like Arnold to move well and be pain free.
A muscle’s ability to generate tension depends not only on its size, but its neural activity. Strong signal to and from the nervous system? Thundercats are go. Diminished, altered, or poorly sequenced signal? We’ve got a recipe for dysfunction.
When we tape tissue, mobilize a joint, manipulate a joint, stretch a tissue, touch an area, we’re tapping into the nervous system. In doing so, we can alter the connection that that particular tissue has with the nervous system (and other tissues), either making it stronger (facilitation/upregulation) or weaker (inhibition/downregulation). NKT alert! A stronger connection means better recruitment of fibers, better firing patterns, increased tension generated, and thus increased force produced. This is a basic explanation for those fast changes you see with techniques that certain folks may consider to be ‘parlor tricks’. In reality, these ‘tricks’ are excellent tools for treatment as they indicate that we have successfully, albeit briefly, accessed the nervous system. You just have to know what you’re doing, and what to do next. But I digress.

Start viewing function, dysfunction, and intervention through a more neurological lens, and suddenly you begin to understand why your 95 year old grandma has no pain, meanwhile your 6-pack has a 6-pack and yet you’re one lift away from a wheelchair and a morphine drip. Size doesn't always matter.