Born to Walk: Myofascial Efficiency and the Body in Movement

The use of the human body as the model for architecture lasted for many centuries. The body was used to inspire architecture, and the inverse was applied as well, with architecture and the idea of bricks and mortar being used to build an understanding of anatomy. Herein lies the problem with our traditional analysis of anatomy.

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 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

In the repetitive motions of walking, the inner tuning of our springs is unconscious. Apparently even the spinal cord is rarely involved in controlling the movement—it is the local relationship between the mechanoreceptors in the fascial tissue and the surrounding “adjusters” of the muscles that are in charge. By finding the most efficient level of

Vitruvius’s fundamental tenet was that “the power of nature has acted as architect” in biology: universal laws of nature had brought about human anatomy, and so, within our body’s design, we had a map of the macrocosm. The body was literally a minor mundus, a “mini world,” and, thereby, a reflection of the universe. The implication was that the arc

It is through the combination of gravity and our tissue’s response to our momentum that we can gain practically free energy. By using the body’s movement to stretch elastic tissues, we recruit the captured energy and then recoil the kinetic energy (the energy of motion) to help create a return movement. It is to this mechanism that much of this boo

When tensions in the body are balanced, there is a sense of effortlessness; the bones are “floating in a sea of tension,” as Myers said, and any changes in that equilibrium will be easily absorbed and recoiled back with the natural resilience of the tissue

One of the hallmarks of efficient walking is the absence of active muscular contraction, maximizing the recoil efficiency of the fascial tissues; an easy walking pattern should use only around 38 percent of the body’s maximal aerobic capacity.

Figure 1.20. The lengthening of the myofascia is sensed by the muscle spindle, which signals the spinal cord. The spinal cord responds with an efferent (motor) nerve signal for the muscle to contract.