Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/1102144
Ta k e 5 a n d t r y A B M P F i v e - M i n u t e M u s c l e s a t w w w. a b m p . c o m / f i v e - m i n u t e - m u s c l e s . 87 The body, in its intrinsic wisdom, continues to adjust the bronchioles and blood vessels, digest your food, maintain the craniosacral pulse, the inspir and expir of the organs, heart rate variability, and a hundred other rhythms below our conscious level of awareness. 23 Structural integration links our outer movement to these inner ones through the language of reflexes and developmental movement. Meditative explorations like Continuum are also useful in linking our inner animal movements (termed biomorphic by Continuum founder Emilie Conrad) into one seamless whole. A NEW UNDERSTANDING OF BIOMECHANICAL AUTOREGULATION To summarize all these points, the structural integration practitioner of the 21st century is concerned with a new, wider understanding of biomechanics. We now understand that muscles have important attachments beyond their origin and insertion. We now understand that ligaments are in series with the muscles, not running parallel to them. 24 Biomechanical autoregulation extends beyond visible anatomy into the very cells themselves. Our autonomic nervous system is highly sensitive to changes in mechanics as well, such that basic psychophysiological foundations like security, safety, readiness for challenge, and ability to express are themselves dramatized in characteristic posture and movement. It is a miracle of mechanics in general that a single wet and vulnerable cell can divide, grow, and succeed in the womb world during embryonic development, make the transition to the gravity world in the first year, and deal with the challenges to grow into sexual, emotional, and mental maturity. All these systems—the fascia, the muscles, the nerves, and the epithelial linings, not to mention the vestibular system, right down to the mechanical connection to epigenetic expression within each cell—are part of how we self-regulate our biomechanics, mostly below but also above our threshold of consciousness. From a small crack in the traditional model that structural integration 1.0 made, we are now seeing that structural integration 2.0 is at the center of a small revolution that applies holism to body movement in a practical way. We hope to report further progress in all these areas before another decade of the 21st century passes. Notes 1. Ida Rolf, Rolfing (Rochester: Healing Arts Press, 1977); E. Maupin, A Dynamic Relation to Gravity, Vol. 1–2 (San Diego: Dawn Eve Press, 2005). 2. Ida Rolf, Rolfing & Physical Reality (Boulder: Rolf Institute, 1979). 3. Fascia Research Society, accessed March 2019, www.fasciaresearchsociety.org/papers. 4. Dr. Ida Rolf's name for her work was structural integration, but it took the nickname Rolfing in the 1970s, and Rolfing is currently a branded name for one of the schools who follow her work. 5. Thomas Myers, Anatomy Trains 3rd ed. (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2014), Appendix 2: 279–92. 6. International Association of Structural Integrators, "IASI Recognized SI Training Programs," accessed March 2019, www.theiasi.net/ iasi-recognized-si-training-programs. 7. Thomas Myers, Anatomy Trains. 8. Robert Schleip et al., Fascia: The Tensional Network of the Human Body (Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone, 2012). 9. Fascia Research Society, accessed March 2019, www.fasciaresearchsociety.org. 10. M. Wanless, The New Anatomy of Rider Connection (North Pomfret, Vermont: Trafalgar Square, 2017). 11. G. Snyder, Fasciae: Applied Anatomy and Physiology (Kirksville, Missouri: Kirksville College of Osteopathy, 1975). 12. P. Friedl and E. B. Brocker, "Three-Dimensional Extracellular Matrix," Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences, 57, no. 1 (2000), 41–64, accessed at https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/ s000180050498; S. Pivar, On the Origin of Form (Berkeley: North Atlantic Books). 13. J. Guimberteau, "Strolling Under the Skin," accessed March 2019, www.youtube. com/watch?v=eW0lvOVKDxE. 14. G. Pollack, Cells, Gels & the Engines of Life (Seattle: Ebner & Sons, 2001). 15. "High Jump Hinge Demonstration," www. youtube.com/w.atch?v=HspzxKXhpzk. 16. N. D. Reeves, "Myotendinous Plasticity to Ageing and Resistance Exercise in Humans," Experimental Physiology 91, no. 3 (2006): 483–98. 17. S. P. Magnusson et al., "The Pathogenesis of Tendinopathy: Balancing the Response to Loading," Nature Reviews Rheumatology 5, no. 6 (2010): 262–68. 18. For a review of recovery studies: www.ncbi. nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4720789. 19. D. Ingber, "Mechanical Control of Tissue Morphogenesis During Embryological Development," International Journal of Developmental Biology 50 (2006): 255–66; D. Ingber, "Mechanobiology and the Diseases of Mechanotransduction," Annals of Medicine 35 (2003): 564–77. 20. K. Bowman, Move Your DNA (Propriometrics Press, 2014); D. Ingber, "Cellular Tensegrity Revisited: J Cell Structure and Hierarchical Systems Biology," Journal of Cell Science 116 (2003): 1,157–73. 21. K. Mahler, Interoception, The 8th Sense (AAPC Publishing, 2015). 22. Thomas Myers, Anatomy Trains. 23. H. Milne, The Heart of Listening (Berkeley: North Atlantic Books); J. P. Barrall, Visceral Manipulation (Seattle: Eastland Press, 1985). 24. J. Van der Wal, "The Architecture of Connective Tissue as Parameter for Proprioception," Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies 2, no. 4 (2009): 9–23; P. A. Huijing, "Intra-, Extra-, and Intercellular Myofascial Force Transmission of Synergists and Antagonists: Effects of Muscle Length as Well as Relative Position," Journal of Mechanics in Medicine and Biology 2 (2002): 1–15. Thomas Myers is the author of Anatomy Trains (Elsevier, 3rd ed: 2014) and Fascial Release for Structural Balance (North Atlantic, 2nd ed: 2017). Myers studied with Ida Rolf and has practiced integrative bodywork for more than 40 years. He directs Anatomy Trains, which offers hundreds of professional certifications and continuing education seminars worldwide. For more information, visit www.anatomytrains.com.