Born to Walk: Myofascial Efficiency and the Body in Movement

The use of solid elements (bone) and elastic elements (myofascia) requires the presence of a certain amount of prestress. It is the contribution of “tension” that gives the structure “integrity” (and it is the combination of these two words

The fascial tissue is transforming kinetic energy into potential energy by absorbing energy and then releasing it back into the system as kinetic energy again. It is impossible to give exact figures for the amount of stretch and recoil that is produced in each fascial tissue, because it varies widely in different parts of the body, but it can be as

The main benefit of this arrangement is that the recoil of the fascial tissue is providing essentially free energy. The fascia is stretched by the interaction of the body’s momentum and its interaction with the ground. If the actin and myosin filaments (the sliding elements within the muscle fibers that control contraction) do not allow the muscle

Cells have their own inner supports, which allow the transfer of mechanical forces. These forces can communicate cell shape to the nucleus and thereby influence cellular expressions (Ingber

Tensegrity structures have an internal resilience that absorbs the energy of external forces and then uses it to return to neutral.

The jump in B added the strong thigh muscles but didn’t allow the additional energy of elastic loading, because too much time was spent in the transition phase. This is also one of the effects of “museum walking”: the stop-and-start nature of it takes away the free energy of the elastic tissue. Rhythm is therefore important, and this can be felt in

The reflex arc creates the contraction of the muscle, which is predominately isometric. Further deceleration of the body’s movement then loads the connective tissue, which eventually reaches a point at which the force required to lengthen it farther has been absorbed by the increasing stiffness of the elastic fiber. Once it reaches the point at whi

The joints—the interfaces between the bones—fold, bend, flex, rotate, or extend in predictable directions. They are therefore able to guide the forces in the body: when the quadriceps contracts, the force is transmitted via the patella to extend the knee. However, when we look at the interaction between the body and the ground, the relationship is

Anatomy Trains in 1997 and showed how, when the fascial tissue is stretched over joints, it can transfer force across the joint from one myofascial unit to another. When the joints are in midrange, the tissue is relaxed and communication is limited to the single units on one side of the joint (see exercise 1.1), but in certain stretched positions,