Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/68165
DISCOVERY THROUGH DISSECTION tongue lung mediastinum New-Age lore against the actuality of what can be seen and learned. In this case, the new conception diaphragm location of pubic symphysis adductor group knee capsule quadratus lumborum psoas major iliacus we are testing against the reality of the body is the idea that the muscles are connected via the fascial fabric longitudinally across the body, and that these myofascial meridians have direct implications for posture, compensation patterns, and how pain expressed in one part of the body can actually be caused by strain in another part. The implications of these new specimens are jaw dropping (well, I would say that, wouldn't I? Exposing these sets of Anatomy Trains has become a significant part of my life's work). These kinetic chains running through the myofascia do offer surprisingly relevant insight for today's bodywork and movement therapists who want to understand integrated functional connection (Image 2, page 37). How, precisely, does work over popliteus here in this corner of the body travel to affect strain and pain over in that far-distant corner? We see and feel it every day in our practice, and we lay deep posterior compartment flexor digitorum longus tibialis posterior flexor hallucis longus THE CORE LINE Left, this extraordinary shape—almost jellyfish or anemone-like—lives inside each of us and defines our body's core, or the Deep Front Line, as it is termed in Anatomy Trains. Running from the inner arch and toes all the way to the tongue and jaw by means of the groin, psoas, and diaphragm. Below: the same dissection from a fresh cadaver. it off to neurological connections or psycho-spiritual links, but here you will see practical pathways through the biological fabric of the fascia that convey stress, tension, pull, and stretch body-wide from one part to another. This fascial logic leads to new ways of assessing, strategizing, and treating chronic biomechanical problems. These dissections also offer a gentle but persistent and distinct challenge to the set-in-stone concept that each muscle is a distinct entity, pulling bones together from origin to insertion. The truth is, of course, that no muscle no 'tach to no bone nowhere in nobody at no time. It is the fascia within and around the muscle that spins into a tendon that blends with the periosteum of the bone, which is in turn continuous with ligaments and more tendons—and so on and so on in a recursive circle. The truth is a single fascial net to which we give many names as we cut it up into pieces. By simply ignoring or cutting out these fascial interconnections, scientists have created an idol and then bowed down to it: the body works, we tell ourselves, by coordinating 600 individual muscles to stabilize and move the 200 bones of the skeleton. This concept of the isolated single muscle— the biceps, the transversus abdominis, the rectus femoris—has invaded our minds, books, and courses until we have all taken it absolutely for granted. These pictures show that this infatuation with identifying and singling out individual muscles is at the very least not the whole story. At worst, traditional dissection methods may mislead us as to how our biomechanical body really organizes itself and works. It is just as true to say that there is only one muscle distributed in 600 pockets within the single fascial web 42 massage & bodywork january/february 2010