There’s not much in it but—based on my experiences and the anatomical facts - I am more certain about Base-Line Theory of Health and Movement that I am about the sun coming up tomorrow. There I’ve said it. It’s what I believe. That strongly. Even so, I would be willing to change my mind and that’s why I persevere with looking for feedback.
Have you ever found the 5 main muscles on your body and given some thought about how they are functioning?
There’s not much in it but—based on my experiences and the anatomical facts—I am more certain about Base-Line Theory of Health and Movement that I am about the sun coming up tomorrow. There I’ve said it. It’s what I believe. That strongly. Even so, I would be willing to change my mind and that’s why I persevere with looking for feedback.
I’d also say that, just on a basic level, this is poor calibration. I would put “sun doesn’t rise tomorrow” at… 1 in 10 million? 1 in 100 million? Maybe those are even too high, 1 in 10 million events do happen with some frequency, but maybe I’m just fundamentally deluded about the nature of reality right now. If my understanding of history and physics isn’t completely borked, I’d be comfortable pushing that probability down to below 1 in a billion or lower.
I’m also comfortable predicting at 90% certainty that a majority of other LWers would also have probabilities for sun-doesn’t-rise tomorrow below 1 in 1 million.
These are.. like.. real brute facts about reality kinds of things. General relativity. Newtonian mechanics. QM. Nuclear physics. That’s the kind of foundation you can build 1 in 100 million-ish certainty on. Stuff with biology is in an entirely different realm of (un)certainties.
I agree, biology is a realm of uncertainties. The wonder of how living organisms function blows my mind. The level of complexity phenomenal.
However, anatomy is much more fixed. Grossly examinable and recordable. Studied in detail for hundreds of years. We have accurate atlases of how the body is put together, what attaches where.…
Anatomy can be complicated (I’ve very much skipped over a lot of details about the pelvic floor muscles and connective tissue structures) and individual variations are seen, but there is much more certainty about how we are put together than biology as a whole.
I know I am right. It has taken a lot for me to get to the point of saying that out loud. Question everything has been a motto of mine for a very long time—and it will always be with me. But I feel how I feel, and accepting that feels right—especially having facts and logic on my side (IMO at least—please someone look at the anatomy!).
However, anatomy is much more fixed. Grossly examinable and recordable. Studied in detail for hundreds of years. We have accurate atlases of how the body is put together, what attaches where....
I know I am right. It has taken a lot for me to get to the point of saying that out loud.
Putting aside the issue of levels of certainty here, I’d agree with ChristianKl that I’m a bit unclear what the implications of your model are, except perhaps, “pay attention to your posture and movement” which I already do a fair amount.
“A very recently reported third discovery demonstrated a previously unknown tissue component-‘interstitium’-a networked collagen bound fluid-filled space existent in a number of human organs.”
I read that and thought:
“What? The interstitium? I learned about that 30 odd years ago. Wasn’t that one of the things I had to label when sketching from a histology slide, wow that was so long ago …. ”
What has been recently noted and publicised is the interstitium in its form in living tissues. From this article:
The researchers said these fluid-filled spaces had been missed for decades because they don’t show up on the standard microscopic slides that researchers use to peer into the cellular world. When scientists prepare tissue samples for these slides, they treat the samples with chemicals, cut them into thin slices and dye them to highlight key features. But this fixing process drains away fluid and causes the newfound fluid-filled spaces to collapse.
Histology 101. Tissues are distorted when prepped for slides. I was taught that at vet school (if not before). I’d assumed / never thought about it, that it was common knowledge amongst medical folks.
I’ve handled a lot of ‘fresh’ mammalian tissues (canine, feline, bovine, equine, ovine, caprine and various others). I’ll go out on a limb and say it’s all the same stuff - bone and muscle fibres all wrapped and blended in a web of connective tissues … in humans too. (This could be a major error. I’ve not handled enough human flesh to really know....)
Seeing live/freshly dead tissues, feeling them in your hands, is a very different experience from learning from a textbook, histology slides or studying bodies prepared for dissection. They can’t compare in giving understanding of how a body is put together, of what it really consists of. These experiences give me lot of confidence in what I say about the role of connective tissues, also the knowledge that defining and delineating is very difficult so I’m sticking to the covering term of ‘connective tissue’ which I wrote a bit about here. I don’t know the precise pathology of ‘physical restrictions in connective tissues’. (Is it collagen fibres cross-linking? Is it interstitial components hardening from fluid to gel to the palpable lumps I can feel subcutaneously? Is it a combination of many factors?!) A good question is how to sample and examine these tissues without distortion.
Putting aside the issue of levels of certainty here,
Phew, much appreciated. : )
I’d agree with ChristianKl that I’m a bit unclear what the implications of your model are, except perhaps, “pay attention to your posture and movement” which I already do a fair amount.
I’ve been side-tracked by “posture”.
My model is about learning to use your body better. I believe the 5 main muscles of movement are key to this, leading to:
Better physical health.
Better mental health.
Less pain and tension in the world.
The level of knowledge about the structure and location of the anatomy I share is at a sufficient level for me to use the word “fact” ( grinding my teeth as I type this, I don’t like to use “fact” for anything).
Muscle tissue blending with connective tissues is very hard to describe in full detail but, ignoring the pelvic floor for a minute, the other 4 main muscles are big and easy to palpate. We know their attachment points to bone and connective tissue structures (minor variations in individuals have been noted and no doubt there are more that have not).
The is enough information for someone to find the muscles on their own body, to touch them and increase conscious awareness of them.
There is much still to learn, to put together, to figure out. I believe Base-Line Theory increases understanding of how we could better use our bodies, of why there is so much unexplained pain -and how to fix it.
As a simple experiment if you are willing, find the 5 midline markers and feel for their relative positioning. As you move through your day, pause to take a few deep breaths and try to be more aware of your midline anatomy. Use it as a reference for the positioning of the rest of your body. See how it feels, what you experience.
Hi. Apologies for not following up sooner—my dad’s been in the hospital.
Muscle tissue blending with connective tissues is very hard to describe in full detail but, ignoring the pelvic floor for a minute, the other 4 main muscles are big and easy to palpate. We know their attachment points to bone and connective tissue structures (minor variations in individuals have been noted and no doubt there are more that have not).
The is enough information for someone to find the muscles on their own body, to touch them and increase conscious awareness of them.
Okay. Abs, butt, quads, traps. I’ll try being more mindful of those, and see if anything suggestive appears. But I also feel like Dr Scott Dye’s failure-of-homeostatis model is more specific to what I’m going through ATM, and gears-y and prescriptive.
Seeing live/freshly dead tissues, feeling them in your hands, is a very different experience from learning from a textbook, histology slides or studying bodies prepared for dissection. They can’t compare in giving understanding of how a body is put together, of what it really consists of. These experiences give me lot of confidence in what I say about the role of connective tissues, also the knowledge that defining and delineating is very difficult so I’m stic
This honestly sounds amazing. Is there a way for a civilian to get access to large mammal [human?] dissections? I’m assuming med schools don’t just let you enroll in a single course or audit the anatomy offerings?
I read the abstract “Patellofemoral Pain: An Enigma Explained by Homeostasis and Common Sense” and found myself nodding along…
overload and/or injury produces pain. Bone overload and synovial inflammation are common sources of such pain.
Patience and persistence in nonoperative care results in consistent success. Surgery should be rare”
I agree with all that. I’d classify it as common sense as they say in the title.
But after reading the article a couple of times I don’t feel the authors were saying anything new.
Our Hypothesis: Loss of Homeostasis Causes Pain
We hypothesize that pain is the result when load applied to musculoskeletal tissues exceeds the ability to maintain homeostasis. Loss of tissue homeostasis from overload and/or injury produces pain.
which the authors are describing as “loss of homeostasis”. The use of “homeostasis” feels unnecessary.
Injury/overload = damage. simples.
However, the inflammatory processes are anything but simple. Inflammation is a rabbit hole I avoid looking to deeply into, I’d be lost for a very long time!
Pain anterior knee. —a consistent set of symptoms, signs, and test results—that does not exist.
I agree with this, and it happens to fit with my ‘individual trauma imprint’ explanation for pain-related symptoms. What our bodies have been subjected to, the damage sustained. With innumerable positions the body has a massive capacity for adaptation. As damage builds up, patterns of symptoms will emerge throughout the body but we’re all a bit different.
Emotions play a role in pain as well, and somatization resulting in knee pain is a well-known phenomenon, particularly in adolescent women related to stress or even abuse.
I checked the article’s references for more details about somatization but found nothing listed. (I also noted the references are mostly to other articles by the authors.) Whilst I do believe emotions and the physical body are intertwined, this statement feels more like a dismissal of knee pain when reported by the young and female. Adolescent women being told “it’s all in your mind” when nothing shows on exam or standard imaging. I wonder how often adolescent men with knee pain are told it’s due to their emotions too, or do they get a “diagnosis” of patellofemoral something or other? I didn’t find anything to back up this as a “well-known phenomenon”.
I say: The knees are joints that are under a lot of stress with little slack so problems appear here first when the body is not aligned and fully balanced. Stress/abuse affects positioning of the body.
Poor positioning can be subtle but it takes its toll. Knee pain—slight adjustments in the joints above and below i.e. hip and ankle to avoid the pain. It affects the whole leg, which then affects the body-whole over time. The body is very adaptable, able to cope with a lot of misusage and abuse but the imbalance and misalignments are cumulative.
The treatments listed: activity modification, cold therapy, anti-inflammatories, physical therapy. are (or at least should be) standard protocols. I’m cringing at the thought that surgery might be pushed in some parts of the world (without good reason), and thankful I wasn’t prescribed opiates as a teenager.
I was going to comment more on cold therapy but I thought I’d check some things I’d always been told, turns out it’s an another rabbit-hole to go down.
I hope your Dad is doing OK. No worries with timeframes—less than immediate responses are one of LW’s strengths IMO.
Abs, butt, quads, traps. I’ll try being more mindful of those,
Fricking awesome! Feel for positioning, freedom to move, and balance in left and right. Just to expand a little …
abs. All good. Imaging extending the linea alba between the rectus abdominis every in-breath. Pubic symphysis to sternum.
butt. fair enough. Big ass muscles—gluteus maximus.
quads. What makes you say “quads” here? It would be very useful for the insight. Focus on the rectus femoris, shin to hip bone. The quadriceps share a distal insertion (common ligament of quads.-patella-patellar ligament-tibial tuberosity) but the rectus femoris is only one of the quads to cross both hip and knee joints. image here. or in the post main muscles made easy. I think of the rectus femoris as the guide muscle of the quadriceps, positioning the leg so the 3 vasti muscles ‘fall into line’ (I don’t like that phrase - but have nothing better).
traps. Excellent. The trapezius muscles should free to support the head and arms through a full range of movement. Movement starting from lower trapezius.
(coughs) Pelvic floor. The base foundation of the body.
It would be useful to me to know how much is “the pelvic floor muscles being important” common knowledge here?
This honestly sounds amazing. Is there a way for a civilian to get access to large mammal [human?] dissections?
Commenting here got me thinking about who has the opportunity to handle really really fresh tissues like I’ve had. It’s not a long list: Anyone who turns animals into meat. Anyone performing autopsies on the freshly dead. Euthanasia and immediate post-mortem is possible in the veterinary world but human corpses are likely to be older when examined and it doesn’t take long (1-2 hours) for connective and adipose tissues to change consistency—temperature and humidity dependant. A certain class of serial killer (skip over that one). Anyone who turns animals into meat. Surgeons, especially those dealing with mass trauma injuries. Removing dirt out of fuzzy connective tissues is a bitch...
I imagine most human dissections aren’t fresh enough to really appreciate “live” tissues. So, how to get in on the action? If you can find a farmer/small-holder type willing to let you watch a butchering, a hunter that processes the carcass, a fresh meat butcher. Or a friendly large animal/equine vet that’s willing to call you when the chance to do a fresh post mortem arises.
I’ve been fortunate with the opportunities I’ve had to increase knowledge and understanding of mammals ‘in the flesh’, something I appreciate a lot more now that I’ve stopped to think about it.
I have quite a lot to say about the link you provided, so will be back with a separate comment. Have you worked through “DAMN-IT” (from one of my previous comments) and seen where that gets you?
I have quite a lot to say about the link you provided, so will be back with a separate comment. Have you worked through “DAMN-IT” (from one of my previous comments) and seen where that gets you?
Yeah, informally. I don’t really have a lot. I saw a physiatrist a few weeks ago, she felt there may be a little arthritis in the joint, but it wasn’t the main problem.
I’ve got an order from my GP for blood work, including looking for markers of systemic inflammation, but haven’t had a chance to fill it yet. In general I don’t feel like I’m very inflamed—my other joints don’t really have a lot of issues (well.. a bit of tendency to rotator cuff soreness from climbing, but it generally seems well managed).
I lost a lot of leg strength with lockdown, bec I lost access to bit barbells, which has been shown to be a risk factor for knee pain. I’ve been working on rebuilding hip flexor and abductor strength, altho more in the high-reps/body-weight range.
There was no major mechanical incident or change; I’m pretty careful with my diet (like, careful enough to worry about omega-6/3 ratios, and to eat sardines a couple of times a week. I don’t really eat industrially processed or produced foods, except for tofu, which is a staple and canned beans).
They seem to respond well to icing and voltarine, which makes me slightly more confident in the “low grade inflammation” theory.
Have you ever found the 5 main muscles on your body and given some thought about how they are functioning?
I think I’ll have to say a bit more about my background. I went through the professional training for Danis Bois perceptive pedagogy. Part of it is anatomy and getting in relationship with various anatomical features.
Besides that general training I had for a while 1-on-1 anatomical teaching with someone that went through classic osteopathy training and then also entered the perceptive pedagogy field and who has three decades of working on people and fixing their issues. He has a good local reputation and a bunch of Yoga and pilates teachers go to him when they are old and their body has issues from being overextended in Yoga positions.
Those are the kind of people I’m asking when I want to know something about how the body works.
One story that Danis Bois likes to tell is that he once had a meeting with the teacher who brought Yoga to France and asked them: “How do you deal with the doubt?” Then the Yoga teacher replied something like: “I have no doubt because Yoga has 4000 years of tradition”.
Part of what makes the community around Danis Bois a good spiritual community for me is that the people actually doubt whether they get things right and are constantly open to updating their models. It makes it a community that’s very compatible with being a rationalist. You seem to me like the Yoga people who are overconfident and not aware of the tradeoffs that they are making.
When it comes to the particular question of posture, I had a conversation with another person who’s also in the perceptive pedagogy field a few months ago. The person also has three decades of treating people a separate professional training in a more mainstream modality in which she teaches. She goes to workshop of different people to know what’s out there. She just wrote her first academic paper. I said something about posture being a mix of fascia and muscle and she said: “No, it’s just fascia” and I think told me in that context a story of a Alexander Method teacher who was very tense as a result of overcontrolling his body.
Those are the kind of people I ask when I want to know something about how human anatomy works.
In constrast to that you have a few years of personal experience, to the extend that you do have had positive effects in that time for what you are doing you have no idea what the effect 30 years down the line will be as you are not exposed to such data yet you present certainty while the people I listen to frequently say they are uncertain.
The aestethic of accepting uncertainty is something that both exists in the rationality community and in the perceptive pedagogy community. Part of that accepting uncertainty does lead to not just completely ignoring you based on reference class concerns and lack of both training and regularly working on helping other people deal with issues.
With my background written out, let’s get back to your theory. The way scientific paradigm work is that a paradigm doesn’t have any probability attached to it. It’s a way of seeing a field.
Only empiric events have probabilities. To do science you actually need theories that make predictions. This requires making claims more specific. I think if you would start making your claims more specific and start making claims that would actually be testable it’s likely that you get into contact with more uncertainty about your model.
Thank you for providing some background. I found it very insightful into your methods of thought and what you consider evidence. (I had to google pedagogy, I don’t know what to make of “perceptive pedagogy”.)
You’ve studied anatomy, I think great! Most people (in my experience) find anatomy intimidating but I would hope someone who has studied it would feel more comfortable giving some consideration some, fairly basic, anatomical facts.
I said something about posture being a mix of fascia and muscle and she said: “No, it’s just fascia”
And you are happy to accept that statement? That muscles, the bodily tissues that change the relative positioning of different parts of the body, don’t affect the position of the body (i.e. posture)?
The state of the connective tissue system (including the ill-defined fascia) is important. The way muscles are functioning, moving the parts and repositioning, is also important. Humans have the capacity to send motor commands to “voluntary muscles”. Muscles can be used to consciously alter positioning, to change posture. Anyone who says body position is just about fascia loses a lot of credibility in one swoop IMO.
Those are the kind of people I ask when I want to know something about how human anatomy works.
Have you done any independent research? Fact checking? Thought about it for yourself? Or are you relying on the opinions of others (however great you feel their experience/knowledge/credentials are)?
I don’t want anyone to just believe me, I want the anatomy to be given some thought. I am constantly open to updating my model, but without feedback I can only work with my experiences. And the facts.
You didn’t answer the question I asked:
Have you ever found the 5 main muscles on your body and given some thought about how they are functioning?
Thank you for providing some background. I found it very insightful into your methods of thought and what you consider evidence. (I had to google pedagogy, I don’t know what to make of “perceptive pedagogy”.)
It’s not a term where you will learn that much online.
In the beginning Danis Bois started out teaching Fasciatherapy. After a while he came to the conclusion that the New Agey people are too closemined and he wanted to try the scientific community. He got a Phd in pedagogy and became professor in somatic-psychoeducation and perceptual psycho-education at the Universidade Moderna in Lisbon, Portugal. As a result he added a new aspect to his teachings. More recently, as his knowledge progressed he used the new term of perceptive pedagogy.
English isn’t the main language but French and the French base term is pédagogie. The scope of the term in French and in German is a bit different then the scope of the English word pedagogy and in the university time the translation was education as in somatic-psychoeducation.
And you are happy to accept that statement? That muscles, the bodily tissues that change the relative positioning of different parts of the body, don’t affect the position of the body (i.e. posture)?
Posture it’s where the body naturaly without effort. For a muscle to hold something in a specific position it has to fire constantly which costs energy. It makes sense for the body to save that energy by using fascia to hold the posture.
It’s also worth noting here that I did pay a serious price for receiving physiotherapy after Schrott for my scolioses (e.g. the goal is posture correction). It trained into my body reflexes that when the muscle tonus falls below a certain point my body tenses up. The cost of that was an inability to fully relax.
It was quite an effort and required an ability to intervene in quite basic processes to get rid of most of that stuff.
You haven’t noticed the skulls around the idea of muscles driving posture.
Have you done any independent research? Fact checking? Thought about it for yourself? Or are you relying on the opinions of others (however great you feel their experience/knowledge/credentials are)?
The same somatic-psychoeducation comes about from it being a paradigm about how to learn from the experience out of the moment. Valuing embodied knowledge instead of abstract knowledge in generally true accross different somatic paradigms and that’s why it’s hard to acquire state of the art knowledge in the field by reading. It’s also why a lot of knowledge isn’t written down as a lot of people don’t value abstract knowledge.
This isn’t physiotherapy where people have a textbook that tells them what to do and then do it. Coincidently that’s also the reason why the physiotherapy textbooks are rubbish. It’s how you can find something that’s for you interesting that you haven’t read in any textbook about physiotherapy.
The 1-on-1 anatomy thing wasn’t about transfering intellectual knowledge it was about feeling the entities in the body of another person (so in some sense it was 1-on-1-on-1)
A simple yes or no will do at this point.
The point I was making is that I thought about all the main muscles and how they work multiple times in the last five years.
Thinking through how muscles work is nothing really new. The physiotherapy might not really do it regularly and rather learn abstract knowledge and that’s why you didn’t find the ideas when you looked there but that work has been done elsewhere.
The issue is that the body is very complex and different processes interplay with another.
Posture it’s where the body naturaly without effort. For a muscle to hold something in a specific position it has to fire constantly which costs energy. It makes sense for the body to save that energy by using fascia to hold the posture.
This is an issue of definitions then. I agree that it is the connective tissue system that provides passive support for the body, minimising muscular effort. I also believe it is the location of ‘physical restrictions’ that cause tension, alter positioning and restrict range of movement.
My definition of posture: The position of the body—all of it, at any time.
(I checked a few sources for a definition of posture. Lots of options out there, pretty much saying what I am calling posture and several mentioning the role of muscles.)
I’m not advocating attempts to get muscles to hold a specific position—in any shape or form. Think gentle movement and relaxation …
Working with the ‘5 main muscles of movement’ and consciously connecting with them provides a lot of sensory feedback about the relative positioning of the torso, head and limbs. Whether it be using 5 midline markers, the linea alba or Base-Line muscles (pelvic floor + rectus abdominis) as the starting reference for positioning (whatever works for an individual). This sensory feedback provides the information needed to work towards a full range of natural movement and a body that is balanced and aligned—where all the parts of the body in the correct relative positioning and free to move, including the myofascial meridians.
Working with the ‘5 main muscles of movement’ and consciously connecting with them provides a lot of sensory feedback about the relative positioning of the torso, head and limbs.
While that claim is true, it’s also not useful as there are a lot of different ways to get sensory feedback.
Take a posture idea like “A simple way to adjust your body into a better posture is to imagine a string attached to the top of your head, towards the back. ”
It seems reasonable for a lot of people. We are at a point where Alexander Technique teachers say “You have inaccurate stereotypes of us if you think we would advocate a bad idea like that.”
Given your idea of how posture works, would you also argue it’s a bad idea and that your idea is very different. If so how do you think your idea is different?
Yes, there are a lot of ways to get sensory feedback. I listed some to increase awareness of the relative positioning of the midline anatomy here.
imagine a string attached to the top of your head, towards the back. ”
The “imagine a string” example is great—if it works for an individual and they engage the ‘right’ muscles to improve posture. It didn’t for me, my body was too restricted and misaligned, my ‘myalgia of imbalance’ too advanced for imagining a string to be of any help.
To take the string idea further, think of the linea alba and nuchal & supraspinous ligaments as part of this string. To straighten the string the main muscles are the rectus abdominis and trapezius muscles. The “attached to the top of your head, towards the back” I’d replace with the external occipital protuberance.
Also, for FWIW, while I don’t have ChristianKI’s level of education in movement, I am an experienced mediator, have done a reasonable amount of work with body scans and some work with tuning the motor cortex and three years of pretty serious contact improv dancing prior to lockdown. I think my proprioception is likely better than average, altho I’m not super confident in that, nor do I have a good sense if it’s 60th or 90th percentile.
I watched a few videos and contact improv looks great. (Full disclosure I watched the videos x2 speed I’ve little patience watching most stuff). For people in a good enough physical condition, and relaxed enough to go with it, I can see it being beneficial and a lot of fun. (5 years ago I would have hated the idea because back then movement = pain, pain, pain and I couldn’t have let go to move) It looks like free-flowing movement, guided instinctively by the body rather than the brain trying to control and direct. Support is being provided which allows increased movement (I achieve similar things by legs hanging off the bed, leaning over arm of chair, using the kitchen worktop as a bar, swinging from posts...) Working towards a full range of natural movement means moving through all the positions possible, the “more awkward” is easier when support is available and the ‘support’ is also moving which adds more randomness and further increase range of movement. I find a similar, gentle, effect moving around in water and letting my limbs float around but if I get the opportunity I will try contact improv.
Now seems a good time to have a minor rant about our modern flat earth..… Walking (especially barefoot) over uneven terrain flexes and stretches the whole of the body in a way that shoes and flat ground just don’t allow.
I will take some time to have a good read of bewelltuned. Are there particular bits that resonate with you? For now, pulling this quotation:
By repeating certain movements and positions over and over again (e.g. during sitting work), we involuntarily strengthen connections between movements and muscles that don’t make much sense lumped together.
This fits with my distorted ‘body map in the mind’ that sends motor commands to the ‘wrong muscles’, adding to imbalance and misalignment.
What do you experience when you are focused on your body?
(body scanning? I don’t know much about the methods involved)
How would you describe your sense of proprioception?
My ‘conscious proprioception’ skills were pretty much at zero when I started and it’s been a revelation actively experiencing the sensory feedback from by body. Starting with focus on my pelvic floor and rectus abdominis ‘Base-Line’ muscles from where movement originates and using my midline anatomy as the reference for positioning of the rest of my body.
Active engagement of the Base-Line muscles creates a positive feedback loop, increasing awareness of :
Voluntary activation of muscles.
The body map in the mind
Proprioceptive feedback that is compared to the map. Seeing the sparkles. The basis of chakras and Qi?
Now I’m aware of my body in a way I never was before. I was always very clumsy…
There’s not much in it but—based on my experiences and the anatomical facts - I am more certain about Base-Line Theory of Health and Movement that I am about the sun coming up tomorrow. There I’ve said it. It’s what I believe. That strongly. Even so, I would be willing to change my mind and that’s why I persevere with looking for feedback.
Have you ever found the 5 main muscles on your body and given some thought about how they are functioning?
I’d also say that, just on a basic level, this is poor calibration. I would put “sun doesn’t rise tomorrow” at… 1 in 10 million? 1 in 100 million? Maybe those are even too high, 1 in 10 million events do happen with some frequency, but maybe I’m just fundamentally deluded about the nature of reality right now. If my understanding of history and physics isn’t completely borked, I’d be comfortable pushing that probability down to below 1 in a billion or lower.
I’m also comfortable predicting at 90% certainty that a majority of other LWers would also have probabilities for sun-doesn’t-rise tomorrow below 1 in 1 million.
These are.. like.. real brute facts about reality kinds of things. General relativity. Newtonian mechanics. QM. Nuclear physics. That’s the kind of foundation you can build 1 in 100 million-ish certainty on. Stuff with biology is in an entirely different realm of (un)certainties.
I agree, biology is a realm of uncertainties. The wonder of how living organisms function blows my mind. The level of complexity phenomenal.
However, anatomy is much more fixed. Grossly examinable and recordable. Studied in detail for hundreds of years. We have accurate atlases of how the body is put together, what attaches where.…
Anatomy can be complicated (I’ve very much skipped over a lot of details about the pelvic floor muscles and connective tissue structures) and individual variations are seen, but there is much more certainty about how we are put together than biology as a whole.
I know I am right. It has taken a lot for me to get to the point of saying that out loud. Question everything has been a motto of mine for a very long time—and it will always be with me. But I feel how I feel, and accepting that feels right—especially having facts and logic on my side (IMO at least—please someone look at the anatomy!).
Anatomy may be more or less fixed, but our understanding of it is definitely much more fluid, and it seems possibly still pretty incomplete: apparently we’ve recently discovered enough new gross anatomical facts that an overview article was published on them in 2019.
Putting aside the issue of levels of certainty here, I’d agree with ChristianKl that I’m a bit unclear what the implications of your model are, except perhaps, “pay attention to your posture and movement” which I already do a fair amount.
From the link you provided:
I read that and thought:
“What? The interstitium? I learned about that 30 odd years ago. Wasn’t that one of the things I had to label when sketching from a histology slide, wow that was so long ago …. ”
What has been recently noted and publicised is the interstitium in its form in living tissues. From this article:
Histology 101. Tissues are distorted when prepped for slides. I was taught that at vet school (if not before). I’d assumed / never thought about it, that it was common knowledge amongst medical folks.
I’ve handled a lot of ‘fresh’ mammalian tissues (canine, feline, bovine, equine, ovine, caprine and various others). I’ll go out on a limb and say it’s all the same stuff - bone and muscle fibres all wrapped and blended in a web of connective tissues … in humans too. (This could be a major error. I’ve not handled enough human flesh to really know....)
Seeing live/freshly dead tissues, feeling them in your hands, is a very different experience from learning from a textbook, histology slides or studying bodies prepared for dissection. They can’t compare in giving understanding of how a body is put together, of what it really consists of. These experiences give me lot of confidence in what I say about the role of connective tissues, also the knowledge that defining and delineating is very difficult so I’m sticking to the covering term of ‘connective tissue’ which I wrote a bit about here. I don’t know the precise pathology of ‘physical restrictions in connective tissues’. (Is it collagen fibres cross-linking? Is it interstitial components hardening from fluid to gel to the palpable lumps I can feel subcutaneously? Is it a combination of many factors?!) A good question is how to sample and examine these tissues without distortion.
Phew, much appreciated. : )
I’ve been side-tracked by “posture”.
My model is about learning to use your body better. I believe the 5 main muscles of movement are key to this, leading to:
Better physical health.
Better mental health.
Less pain and tension in the world.
The level of knowledge about the structure and location of the anatomy I share is at a sufficient level for me to use the word “fact” ( grinding my teeth as I type this, I don’t like to use “fact” for anything).
Muscle tissue blending with connective tissues is very hard to describe in full detail but, ignoring the pelvic floor for a minute, the other 4 main muscles are big and easy to palpate. We know their attachment points to bone and connective tissue structures (minor variations in individuals have been noted and no doubt there are more that have not).
The is enough information for someone to find the muscles on their own body, to touch them and increase conscious awareness of them.
There is much still to learn, to put together, to figure out. I believe Base-Line Theory increases understanding of how we could better use our bodies, of why there is so much unexplained pain -and how to fix it.
As a simple experiment if you are willing, find the 5 midline markers and feel for their relative positioning. As you move through your day, pause to take a few deep breaths and try to be more aware of your midline anatomy. Use it as a reference for the positioning of the rest of your body. See how it feels, what you experience.
Thank you for the interaction! It’s very useful.
Hi. Apologies for not following up sooner—my dad’s been in the hospital.
Okay. Abs, butt, quads, traps. I’ll try being more mindful of those, and see if anything suggestive appears. But I also feel like Dr Scott Dye’s failure-of-homeostatis model is more specific to what I’m going through ATM, and gears-y and prescriptive.
This honestly sounds amazing. Is there a way for a civilian to get access to large mammal [human?] dissections? I’m assuming med schools don’t just let you enroll in a single course or audit the anatomy offerings?
Thank you for your engagement : )
Some comments on Dr Scott Dye’s failure-of-homeostatis model:
I read the abstract “Patellofemoral Pain: An Enigma Explained by Homeostasis and Common Sense” and found myself nodding along…
I agree with all that. I’d classify it as common sense as they say in the title.
But after reading the article a couple of times I don’t feel the authors were saying anything new.
Overload/injury = stresses beyond tolerable levels --> damaged tissues & inflammatory processes,
which the authors are describing as “loss of homeostasis”. The use of “homeostasis” feels unnecessary.
Injury/overload = damage. simples.
However, the inflammatory processes are anything but simple. Inflammation is a rabbit hole I avoid looking to deeply into, I’d be lost for a very long time!
I agree with this, and it happens to fit with my ‘individual trauma imprint’ explanation for pain-related symptoms. What our bodies have been subjected to, the damage sustained. With innumerable positions the body has a massive capacity for adaptation. As damage builds up, patterns of symptoms will emerge throughout the body but we’re all a bit different.
I checked the article’s references for more details about somatization but found nothing listed. (I also noted the references are mostly to other articles by the authors.) Whilst I do believe emotions and the physical body are intertwined, this statement feels more like a dismissal of knee pain when reported by the young and female. Adolescent women being told “it’s all in your mind” when nothing shows on exam or standard imaging. I wonder how often adolescent men with knee pain are told it’s due to their emotions too, or do they get a “diagnosis” of patellofemoral something or other? I didn’t find anything to back up this as a “well-known phenomenon”.
I say: The knees are joints that are under a lot of stress with little slack so problems appear here first when the body is not aligned and fully balanced. Stress/abuse affects positioning of the body.
Poor positioning can be subtle but it takes its toll. Knee pain—slight adjustments in the joints above and below i.e. hip and ankle to avoid the pain. It affects the whole leg, which then affects the body-whole over time. The body is very adaptable, able to cope with a lot of misusage and abuse but the imbalance and misalignments are cumulative.
The treatments listed: activity modification, cold therapy, anti-inflammatories, physical therapy. are (or at least should be) standard protocols. I’m cringing at the thought that surgery might be pushed in some parts of the world (without good reason), and thankful I wasn’t prescribed opiates as a teenager.
I was going to comment more on cold therapy but I thought I’d check some things I’d always been told, turns out it’s an another rabbit-hole to go down.
https://www.physio-pedia.com/Cryotherapy
https://thesportjournal.org/article/the-r-i-c-e-protocol-is-a-myth-a-review-and-recommendations/
Cold—good or bad? It does numb the area for a while but what’s the deeper effects on the tissues...
I hope your Dad is doing OK. No worries with timeframes—less than immediate responses are one of LW’s strengths IMO.
Fricking awesome! Feel for positioning, freedom to move, and balance in left and right. Just to expand a little …
abs. All good. Imaging extending the linea alba between the rectus abdominis every in-breath. Pubic symphysis to sternum.
butt. fair enough. Big ass muscles—gluteus maximus.
quads. What makes you say “quads” here? It would be very useful for the insight. Focus on the rectus femoris, shin to hip bone. The quadriceps share a distal insertion (common ligament of quads.-patella-patellar ligament-tibial tuberosity) but the rectus femoris is only one of the quads to cross both hip and knee joints. image here. or in the post main muscles made easy. I think of the rectus femoris as the guide muscle of the quadriceps, positioning the leg so the 3 vasti muscles ‘fall into line’ (I don’t like that phrase - but have nothing better).
traps. Excellent. The trapezius muscles should free to support the head and arms through a full range of movement. Movement starting from lower trapezius.
(coughs) Pelvic floor. The base foundation of the body.
It would be useful to me to know how much is “the pelvic floor muscles being important” common knowledge here?
Commenting here got me thinking about who has the opportunity to handle really really fresh tissues like I’ve had. It’s not a long list: Anyone who turns animals into meat. Anyone performing autopsies on the freshly dead. Euthanasia and immediate post-mortem is possible in the veterinary world but human corpses are likely to be older when examined and it doesn’t take long (1-2 hours) for connective and adipose tissues to change consistency—temperature and humidity dependant. A certain class of serial killer (skip over that one). Anyone who turns animals into meat. Surgeons, especially those dealing with mass trauma injuries. Removing dirt out of fuzzy connective tissues is a bitch...
I imagine most human dissections aren’t fresh enough to really appreciate “live” tissues. So, how to get in on the action? If you can find a farmer/small-holder type willing to let you watch a butchering, a hunter that processes the carcass, a fresh meat butcher. Or a friendly large animal/equine vet that’s willing to call you when the chance to do a fresh post mortem arises.
I’ve been fortunate with the opportunities I’ve had to increase knowledge and understanding of mammals ‘in the flesh’, something I appreciate a lot more now that I’ve stopped to think about it.
I have quite a lot to say about the link you provided, so will be back with a separate comment. Have you worked through “DAMN-IT” (from one of my previous comments) and seen where that gets you?
He’s dying. Likely going into palliative soon.
Yeah, informally. I don’t really have a lot. I saw a physiatrist a few weeks ago, she felt there may be a little arthritis in the joint, but it wasn’t the main problem.
I’ve got an order from my GP for blood work, including looking for markers of systemic inflammation, but haven’t had a chance to fill it yet. In general I don’t feel like I’m very inflamed—my other joints don’t really have a lot of issues (well.. a bit of tendency to rotator cuff soreness from climbing, but it generally seems well managed).
I lost a lot of leg strength with lockdown, bec I lost access to bit barbells, which has been shown to be a risk factor for knee pain. I’ve been working on rebuilding hip flexor and abductor strength, altho more in the high-reps/body-weight range.
There was no major mechanical incident or change; I’m pretty careful with my diet (like, careful enough to worry about omega-6/3 ratios, and to eat sardines a couple of times a week. I don’t really eat industrially processed or produced foods, except for tofu, which is a staple and canned beans).
They seem to respond well to icing and voltarine, which makes me slightly more confident in the “low grade inflammation” theory.
I think I’ll have to say a bit more about my background. I went through the professional training for Danis Bois perceptive pedagogy. Part of it is anatomy and getting in relationship with various anatomical features.
Besides that general training I had for a while 1-on-1 anatomical teaching with someone that went through classic osteopathy training and then also entered the perceptive pedagogy field and who has three decades of working on people and fixing their issues. He has a good local reputation and a bunch of Yoga and pilates teachers go to him when they are old and their body has issues from being overextended in Yoga positions.
Those are the kind of people I’m asking when I want to know something about how the body works.
One story that Danis Bois likes to tell is that he once had a meeting with the teacher who brought Yoga to France and asked them: “How do you deal with the doubt?” Then the Yoga teacher replied something like: “I have no doubt because Yoga has 4000 years of tradition”.
Part of what makes the community around Danis Bois a good spiritual community for me is that the people actually doubt whether they get things right and are constantly open to updating their models. It makes it a community that’s very compatible with being a rationalist. You seem to me like the Yoga people who are overconfident and not aware of the tradeoffs that they are making.
When it comes to the particular question of posture, I had a conversation with another person who’s also in the perceptive pedagogy field a few months ago. The person also has three decades of treating people a separate professional training in a more mainstream modality in which she teaches. She goes to workshop of different people to know what’s out there. She just wrote her first academic paper. I said something about posture being a mix of fascia and muscle and she said: “No, it’s just fascia” and I think told me in that context a story of a Alexander Method teacher who was very tense as a result of overcontrolling his body.
Those are the kind of people I ask when I want to know something about how human anatomy works.
In constrast to that you have a few years of personal experience, to the extend that you do have had positive effects in that time for what you are doing you have no idea what the effect 30 years down the line will be as you are not exposed to such data yet you present certainty while the people I listen to frequently say they are uncertain.
The aestethic of accepting uncertainty is something that both exists in the rationality community and in the perceptive pedagogy community. Part of that accepting uncertainty does lead to not just completely ignoring you based on reference class concerns and lack of both training and regularly working on helping other people deal with issues.
With my background written out, let’s get back to your theory. The way scientific paradigm work is that a paradigm doesn’t have any probability attached to it. It’s a way of seeing a field.
Only empiric events have probabilities. To do science you actually need theories that make predictions. This requires making claims more specific. I think if you would start making your claims more specific and start making claims that would actually be testable it’s likely that you get into contact with more uncertainty about your model.
Thank you for providing some background. I found it very insightful into your methods of thought and what you consider evidence. (I had to google pedagogy, I don’t know what to make of “perceptive pedagogy”.)
You’ve studied anatomy, I think great! Most people (in my experience) find anatomy intimidating but I would hope someone who has studied it would feel more comfortable giving some consideration some, fairly basic, anatomical facts.
And you are happy to accept that statement? That muscles, the bodily tissues that change the relative positioning of different parts of the body, don’t affect the position of the body (i.e. posture)?
The state of the connective tissue system (including the ill-defined fascia) is important. The way muscles are functioning, moving the parts and repositioning, is also important. Humans have the capacity to send motor commands to “voluntary muscles”. Muscles can be used to consciously alter positioning, to change posture. Anyone who says body position is just about fascia loses a lot of credibility in one swoop IMO.
Have you done any independent research? Fact checking? Thought about it for yourself? Or are you relying on the opinions of others (however great you feel their experience/knowledge/credentials are)?
I don’t want anyone to just believe me, I want the anatomy to be given some thought. I am constantly open to updating my model, but without feedback I can only work with my experiences. And the facts.
You didn’t answer the question I asked:
Have you ever found the 5 main muscles on your body and given some thought about how they are functioning?
A simple yes or no will do at this point.
It’s not a term where you will learn that much online.
In the beginning Danis Bois started out teaching Fasciatherapy. After a while he came to the conclusion that the New Agey people are too closemined and he wanted to try the scientific community. He got a Phd in pedagogy and became professor in somatic-psychoeducation and perceptual psycho-education at the Universidade Moderna in Lisbon, Portugal. As a result he added a new aspect to his teachings. More recently, as his knowledge progressed he used the new term of perceptive pedagogy.
English isn’t the main language but French and the French base term is pédagogie. The scope of the term in French and in German is a bit different then the scope of the English word pedagogy and in the university time the translation was education as in somatic-psychoeducation.
http://fasciatherapie.org/international/index.php/fasciatherapy-dbm/danis-bois is one public biography of him that gives a bit of an overview over a part of the work and the part that interfaces directly with anatomy.
Posture it’s where the body naturaly without effort. For a muscle to hold something in a specific position it has to fire constantly which costs energy. It makes sense for the body to save that energy by using fascia to hold the posture.
It’s also worth noting here that I did pay a serious price for receiving physiotherapy after Schrott for my scolioses (e.g. the goal is posture correction). It trained into my body reflexes that when the muscle tonus falls below a certain point my body tenses up. The cost of that was an inability to fully relax.
It was quite an effort and required an ability to intervene in quite basic processes to get rid of most of that stuff.
You haven’t noticed the skulls around the idea of muscles driving posture.
The same somatic-psychoeducation comes about from it being a paradigm about how to learn from the experience out of the moment. Valuing embodied knowledge instead of abstract knowledge in generally true accross different somatic paradigms and that’s why it’s hard to acquire state of the art knowledge in the field by reading. It’s also why a lot of knowledge isn’t written down as a lot of people don’t value abstract knowledge.
This isn’t physiotherapy where people have a textbook that tells them what to do and then do it. Coincidently that’s also the reason why the physiotherapy textbooks are rubbish. It’s how you can find something that’s for you interesting that you haven’t read in any textbook about physiotherapy.
The 1-on-1 anatomy thing wasn’t about transfering intellectual knowledge it was about feeling the entities in the body of another person (so in some sense it was 1-on-1-on-1)
The point I was making is that I thought about all the main muscles and how they work multiple times in the last five years.
Thinking through how muscles work is nothing really new. The physiotherapy might not really do it regularly and rather learn abstract knowledge and that’s why you didn’t find the ideas when you looked there but that work has been done elsewhere.
The issue is that the body is very complex and different processes interplay with another.
This is an issue of definitions then. I agree that it is the connective tissue system that provides passive support for the body, minimising muscular effort. I also believe it is the location of ‘physical restrictions’ that cause tension, alter positioning and restrict range of movement.
My definition of posture: The position of the body—all of it, at any time.
(I checked a few sources for a definition of posture. Lots of options out there, pretty much saying what I am calling posture and several mentioning the role of muscles.)
I’m not advocating attempts to get muscles to hold a specific position—in any shape or form. Think gentle movement and relaxation …
Working with the ‘5 main muscles of movement’ and consciously connecting with them provides a lot of sensory feedback about the relative positioning of the torso, head and limbs. Whether it be using 5 midline markers, the linea alba or Base-Line muscles (pelvic floor + rectus abdominis) as the starting reference for positioning (whatever works for an individual). This sensory feedback provides the information needed to work towards a full range of natural movement and a body that is balanced and aligned—where all the parts of the body in the correct relative positioning and free to move, including the myofascial meridians.
While that claim is true, it’s also not useful as there are a lot of different ways to get sensory feedback.
Take a posture idea like “A simple way to adjust your body into a better posture is to imagine a string attached to the top of your head, towards the back. ”
It seems reasonable for a lot of people. We are at a point where Alexander Technique teachers say “You have inaccurate stereotypes of us if you think we would advocate a bad idea like that.”
Given your idea of how posture works, would you also argue it’s a bad idea and that your idea is very different. If so how do you think your idea is different?
Yes, there are a lot of ways to get sensory feedback. I listed some to increase awareness of the relative positioning of the midline anatomy here.
The “imagine a string” example is great—if it works for an individual and they engage the ‘right’ muscles to improve posture. It didn’t for me, my body was too restricted and misaligned, my ‘myalgia of imbalance’ too advanced for imagining a string to be of any help.
To take the string idea further, think of the linea alba and nuchal & supraspinous ligaments as part of this string. To straighten the string the main muscles are the rectus abdominis and trapezius muscles. The “attached to the top of your head, towards the back” I’d replace with the external occipital protuberance.
Also, for FWIW, while I don’t have ChristianKI’s level of education in movement, I am an experienced mediator, have done a reasonable amount of work with body scans and some work with tuning the motor cortex and three years of pretty serious contact improv dancing prior to lockdown. I think my proprioception is likely better than average, altho I’m not super confident in that, nor do I have a good sense if it’s 60th or 90th percentile.
I watched a few videos and contact improv looks great. (Full disclosure I watched the videos x2 speed I’ve little patience watching most stuff). For people in a good enough physical condition, and relaxed enough to go with it, I can see it being beneficial and a lot of fun. (5 years ago I would have hated the idea because back then movement = pain, pain, pain and I couldn’t have let go to move) It looks like free-flowing movement, guided instinctively by the body rather than the brain trying to control and direct. Support is being provided which allows increased movement (I achieve similar things by legs hanging off the bed, leaning over arm of chair, using the kitchen worktop as a bar, swinging from posts...) Working towards a full range of natural movement means moving through all the positions possible, the “more awkward” is easier when support is available and the ‘support’ is also moving which adds more randomness and further increase range of movement. I find a similar, gentle, effect moving around in water and letting my limbs float around but if I get the opportunity I will try contact improv.
Now seems a good time to have a minor rant about our modern flat earth..… Walking (especially barefoot) over uneven terrain flexes and stretches the whole of the body in a way that shoes and flat ground just don’t allow.
I will take some time to have a good read of bewelltuned. Are there particular bits that resonate with you? For now, pulling this quotation:
This fits with my distorted ‘body map in the mind’ that sends motor commands to the ‘wrong muscles’, adding to imbalance and misalignment.
What do you experience when you are focused on your body?
(body scanning? I don’t know much about the methods involved)
How would you describe your sense of proprioception?
My ‘conscious proprioception’ skills were pretty much at zero when I started and it’s been a revelation actively experiencing the sensory feedback from by body. Starting with focus on my pelvic floor and rectus abdominis ‘Base-Line’ muscles from where movement originates and using my midline anatomy as the reference for positioning of the rest of my body.
Active engagement of the Base-Line muscles creates a positive feedback loop, increasing awareness of :
Voluntary activation of muscles.
The body map in the mind
Proprioceptive feedback that is compared to the map. Seeing the sparkles. The basis of chakras and Qi?
Now I’m aware of my body in a way I never was before. I was always very clumsy…