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Human Body; The Double-Spiral Arrangement."1 Splenii muscles Dart, the preeminent anthropologist of his time, was also a student of the Alexander Technique. In the article, he described the relationship from the rhomboids to the serratus anterior to the external oblique. I was fascinated by the obvious significance of these functional connections, but my reaction was, "Why stop there?" Over the next several years, I went on to document the whole Spiral Line and the rest of the Anatomy Trains from this inspiration.2 I thank Dart for the inspiration and Oschman for pointing his finger in the right direction, but the progressive development of the Anatomy Trains system involved a lot more perspiration, including the work of demonstrating the reality of the myofascial lines through dissection, the results of which appear in the photos accompanying this article and on our DVD Anatomy Trains Revealed.3 I am fond of describing the Spiral Line as a double helix, but it is not a twisted-ladder double helix like the DNA molecule. It is rather two reverse helices that wrap around the body in opposite directions like a straitjacket, supporting the spine and trunk with their tone, and inducing rotations when contracted unilaterally or asymmetrically. Let us take a brief tour of the Spiral Line anatomy, before returning to see it function as a whole, and then run down some of the red flags that can alert you to Spiral Line imbalance. SPIRAL LINE ROUTE MAP Just under the trapezius on the back of the neck are the two splenii muscles, the topmost muscles of the Spiral Line, which come down and in (OK, they Rhomboid muscles Serratus interior While we had theorized about it previously, it was still surprising what a strong fabric of fascia traverses the spinous processes from the splenius on one side to the rhomboids on the other. Photo courtesy of the Laboratories of Anatomical Enlightenment (http://lofae.com). A Splenius capitus and cervicis Asis and ilian crest Rectus abdominus and abdominal fascia Serratus anterior Orientation of cervical spinous process Internal oblique External oblique B come medial as they pass inferiorly), unlike the trapezius and most of the spinal muscles, whose fibers go down and out, or just straight down. If we cross over the spinous processes, we pick up the rhomboids on the opposite side (Image 3A). There is actual fascial fabric traversing over the top of the spinous processes joining these contralateral muscles—which honestly was a surprise and delight to me when we dissected it (Image 3B), which we have done several times with the same result. The connection between the rhomboids and their continuation, the serratus anterior, is well established. The medial border of the scapula does not divide these two muscles in any tissue sense as depicted in many anatomy atlases. In fact, the fascia and sometimes even the muscle fibers are continuous with each other under the edge of the shoulder blade. The scapula could be more accurately described as being simply glued by fascia onto this sheet of rhombo-serratus muscle. We will return to this shortly. Rhomboids Line of attachment for the medial border of the scapula Celebrate ABMP's 25th anniversary and you may win a refund on your membership. ABMP.com. 95