Holding Together

We stabilize our body by a combination of factors, including the significant and fundamental stabilizing function of muscles, ligaments, fasciae and other associated connective tissues.

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Inefficient stabilization – a lessening of the ability to hold yourself together – is a primary factor in the development of physical vunerability, injury, chronic pain and deterioration. 

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Each component of our body needs to be able to hold its place. If a body component can’t hold its place, it becomes a vulnerability. Unstable levers subject the joints to torsional and vector forces. Eventually, adaptive functions can become overwhelmed and collapse.

 

We might be holding ourselves together with enough efficiency that we don’t really notice a change, or we might notice it as an inconvenient discomfort that we can live with. A less efficient stabilization strategy might work for some time, but it can tend to become entangled in complexity.  

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Ideally, every structure should function fully in its place, performing its assigned task, neither borrowing nor lending. When we effectively hold ourselves together, the conflict between the opposing forces of weight and impact is minimized. (There are other examples of opposing forces as well, for example throwing a ball, swinging a club or bat, hammering, and many others.)

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When every component of the body structure is able to hold together, it is easier to remain upright, and the joints can “float.” When we fail to efficiently hold ourselves together, our weight can fall unevenly onto the joints, compressing and torquing them. This can lead to chronic pain and degeneration.

 

Because of the interconnectedness of the body, instability anywhere in the body can contribute to a symptom anywhere in the body, just as water seeping onto the floor from under the base of a wall can indicate a leak in the roof. An injury to your shoulder might require attention to your elbow, or your opposite hip or knee, to fully resolve. There is always a dynamic at play.

 

The body has a natural way to accommodate the conflict between weight and impact. Similar to the way suspension in a car might be less efficient when its alignment is altered after hitting a pothole or being in a minor collision, the ordered pathway for shock dispersion can become less ordered, leading to repeated impact at specific joints. Many factors can affect this: accidents and injuries, manual labor, long sitting in a driver’s seat or at a computer, and repetitive activities such as work and sports.

 

The assignment of roles to a muscle is a circuit phenomenon that continually shifts the delicate balance between motion - including impulse and impact - and stabilization. 

 

The efficiency of stabilization might be considered as a function of timing. For example, when a load is applied to the body, the stabilizers have to activate with split-second timing. If not there with precise timing and sufficient counter-tone, the structure might torque and deliver the load to another part of the body, a part that is possibly not prepared, not primed, not anticipating that the load will be delivered in that way. And that part might or might not be able to manage the sudden delivery. If it does, then we go on and might not even notice. Each situation is unique in the moment, with that motion and that load or thrust, with this body and this specific history of previous accommodation. 

 

Local and adjacent regions are in constant relationship. Pain in any part of your body – neck, back, shoulder, elbow, wrist, hands, pelvis, hips, knees, ankles, feet – can be relieved, often long-term, by improving the stabilization of that region as well as of adjacent regions.