Adaptive Bodywork is a powerful Structural Integration modality that allows the optimization of the movement fundamentals consisting of posture (structural alignment), Tensegrity, Elasticity and Reactivity. That is, create a structurally stable, omnidirectional, energy efficient support continuum. One that maximizes performance while minimizing the internal cost of achieving that goal.
Structural Alignment(posture) and Athletic movement
Look at your posture i.e. your structural alignment… others do.
Adaptive Bodywork sessions begin by assessing structural alignment, which is the basis of all movement and especially athletic movement. This alignment or posture is the most important “infrastructure” upon which any and all sporting activity or effective movement practice is built.
Assessing the athlete
Assessing the athlete from a global perspective before treatment allows you to plan your treatment session.
- It allows you to make note of various structures from treatment to treatment to assist you in understanding what is normal verses not normal for that individual and what may require your attention.
- It also allows you to tailor each treatment to the athlete in a unique manner to ensure that the appropriate things get treated.
Use Adaptive Bodywork to fine-tune your alignment and optimize your functional movement in competitive sport and everyday activities.
Making an effort to “live” while in your absolute tallest posture should be the FIRST goal of any movement practice where the athlete or movement practitioner is trying to reach their full potential. This objective is not something that can be achieved through conscious effort alone. You cannot will yourself out of a dysfunctional posture, and an attempt to do so will only succeed in adding stress to an already over-stressed body. Effective bodywork creates space that allows the desired change to occur. Adaptive AdaptiveBodywork employs the most powerful tools available to modify both your support structure and the movement strategy necessary to make this goal a reality.
AdaptiveBodywork begins by creating the necessary space, communication, and alignment for such a change to occur. All great athletes and movement specialist possess this ideal alignment during sport and movement activities, as well as during the mundane activities of everyday life. Once the structure has been modified, they must “live” this ideal alignment by repatterining their neurology. The goal is to become aligned by default at a reflexive level, and thus able to reap the benefits and efficiency of this ideal alignment. Great posture must become a habit even when sitting around. Learn to live with it and it will be there to serve you when you need it.
What is consistent amongst all elite and all-time great athletes, is that they all demonstrate great total body posture, and especially great posture and proprioception of the pelvis.
What is tensegrity?
Tensegrity is a structural principle based on the use of isolated components in compression inside a net of continuous tension, in such a way that the compressed members do not touch each other and the prestressed tensioned members delineate the system spatially. It is a balance between compression and expansion, which is a perfect way to describe our posture and the structure of our bodies, especially athletic bodies.
In the standard “Tensegrity” model, all the struts or sticks are free-floating (not in contact or supporting of one another), but held together by the cumulative tension of the fibres that bind them together. These forms are self stabilized, independent of gravity and need no external support.
Tensegrity models are like human bodies in that they rely on a “balance between compression and expansion”, in regards to the tensegrity, or “tensional integrity”, of their structure. It is apparent that living structures demonstrate the qualities of tensional integrity.
The application of tensegrity to nature, and more specifically to the human body is referred to as
“Bio-tensegrity”.
In our case, the sticks of the tensegrity model relate to our bones, which also do not directly connect to, or support, each other across joints, and the fibres represent all the tensional elements in our bodies such as muscles, tendons, ligaments, and fascia.
It is understood that if it weren’t for the presence of all the tensional elements of our bodies; muscle, tendons, ligaments, and fascia, our skeletons would clatter to the ground in a heap, just like the sticks in the models, if their fibres suddenly disappeared.
The advantage of a Tensegrity Structure
The main advantage of a tensegrity structure is its capacity to withstand the stresses applied to it while being absolutely energy efficient. That is, doing less for more, so that it exists with the least amount of energy expenditure. Indeed, in a Tensegrity structure, because of the total interdependence of components, each external constraint (in compression or tension) is transmitted globally throughout the entire structure. The whole body is dynamically linked so that forces are instantly translated everywhere. It is a highly effective strain distribution system.
Thus, the application of a large force extremely local, does not threaten the integrity of the affected area due to the instantaneous redistribution of stress throughout the system via the network tensility.
Tensegrity describes a structural relationship principle in which structural shape is guaranteed by the finitely closed, comprehensively continuous, tensional behaviours of the system and not by the discontinuous and exclusively local compressional member behaviours.
How does Tensegrity relate to posture, and more importantly to Athletic Posture?
Sway Back, Lumbar Lordosis, Thoracic Kyphosis, Forward Head, are all examples of compromised or dysfunctional postures.
The two postures below left exhibit poor “tensional integrity”, and are imbalanced in their ratios of “compression vs. expansion”.
Individuals with poor postures are allowing gravity, the body’s own mass, and habitual muscle/tendon shortening (hypertonicity), to compress the musculoskeletal system to a point of disfunction.
On the below right is an example of an excellent neutral posture, which is ideal for athletic movement.
A neutral posture, where the body is standing at its tallest natural height and the top of the head is literally separated (or expanded) from the tailbone and heels as much as possible, exhibits “tensional integrity” and is in optimal balance of “compression and expansion”.
If the tensional elements in a model aren’t all at optimal lengths for that specific structure’s design, or one of the fibres is “cinched” or shortened (hypertonic) effecting its optimal length, then the structural integrity of the whole system will be compromised in both stability and performance. When the model is balanced in compression and expansion, it will therefor be optimally “reactive”, and allow for the best possible physical performance or movement activity.
The excellent posture on the right, that is in balance with tensional integrity will naturally be optimally reactive and elastic during athletic movement.
When the length of the muscles, tendons, and fascia (or tensional elements) are compromised by poor posture like the two bodies on the left. The entire system will become less elastic and less reactive.
As if the bio-tensegrity has been compromised by having several of it’s fibres cut, causing it to collapse.
A skeleton with poor posture like the one on the left, shortens some elements while lengthening other elements, creating a destructive imbalance between compression and expansion inside the musculoskeletal system.
Tensegrity in the Deep Front Line
Posture and Tensegrity in the Deep Front Line (Thomas Myers’ Anatomy Trains) is the foundation of all movement. The Deep Front Line is literally the “core” of the body. Optimal lengthening of all the musculature around the pelvis and spine is imperative, especially for the psoas major, with its origin on the lower lumbar spine and insertion on the femur.
Excellent overall posture is important, but an optimal neutral posture in the pelvis and lower lumbar spine is the most important foundational aspect for any athlete in reaching their physical potential.
The body’s centre of gravity (COG) essentially resides in front of the top portion of where the psoas major attaches to the lumbar spine, making the tensegrity, or “tensional integrity”, of the pelvis and lumbar spine especially important as a link between your COG and ground reaction forces.
Of equal importance, ideal and reflexive frontside movement mechanics rely on the psoas major being at an optimal length through tall neutral pelvis and lumbar spine postures.
Here is a sequence of photos showing an Adaptive Bodywork client before AB, after the first AB session, and then after a second session 1 week later. Although this is an impressive visual progression, much more importantly, this client who is a serious amateur hockey player, reports vastly improved balance, spatial awareness and control and handling on ice. He calls the change, “Absolutely Unbelievable”. You see we are working with far more than just postural aesthetics. We have the potential to change lives…
The two poor postures on the left are destructive to the tensegrity, or elasticity and reactivity, of the entire body, and Lumbar Lordosis (and anterior pelvic tilt) is the most destructive to the integrity of the musculature of the pelvis and lumbar spine.
Poor posture through Lordosis and anterior pelvic tilt shortens the psoas major, psoas minor, illiacus, and all the important tensional elements of the Deep Front Line that connect the core of the body to the pelvis and femurs.
Adaptive Bodywork provides the tools and corrective strategies that will allow the most important part of your body to respond to ground reaction optimally. Intrinsic Sensory Integration will then provide the neurological reinforcement required to insure that the correct posture ultimately becomes a habit for the athlete.
A great posture will eliminate destructive issues peripheral to the COG as well, like chronic plantar flexion and shoulder pain…
The thing the athlete who exhibits the two postures on the left must immediately “get over”, is that making the commitment to exist in the good posture on the right will literally be physically uncomfortable for a while. Just like any other physical conditioning aspect in which you’re attempting to adapt the system to something new and better.
Start your journey to structural well being with a comprehensive 90 minute Adaptive Bodywork Session or make it a project with a 3, 6 or 12-series.
Together we’ll explore what’s holding you back.
Together, we’ll set you on a path to a more balanced and integrated life.
Removing Pain from the Human body by Adaptively Reconfiguring the Connective Tissue Support System…
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Have you got questions?
For more information visit us at: www.adaptivebodywork.com
Are you ready to get started?
Start your journey to structural well being with a comprehensive 90 minute Adaptive Bodywork Session or make it a project with a 3, 6 or 12-series.
Together we’ll explore what’s holding you back.
Together, we’ll set you on a path to a more balanced and integrated life.
3167 St-Catherine St., East
Montreal, Quebec, H1W 2C4, Canada
1-514-830-5444
info@adaptivebodywork.com
