Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/694071
Locked-Short/ Locked-Long When evaluating postural distortional patterns in the past, opposing muscle groups at a joint were classically described as being tight and weak. The assumption was that tight muscles were strong and weak muscles were loose, so the imbalance of bony posture at a joint was described as being caused by strong/ tight muscles on one side of the joint overpowering weak/ loose muscles on the other side. It is now understood this description does not fully and accurately describe the state of the relationship of these muscle groups to neuro-myo-fascio- skeletal posture and function. Current wisdom favors the use of the terms overly facilitated and overly inhibited muscles. These terms incorporate the role of the nervous system in recruiting musculature to contract for postural patterns. Overly facilitated muscles are excessively favored by the nervous system to contract; and overly inhibited muscles are under-recruited by the nervous system to contract. The facilitated muscles end up overly concentrically contracted and short; the inhibited muscles are overpowered by the facilitated muscles and end up being pulled long. This results in the imbalanced pull across a joint and the resultant altered posture. Certainly, the overly facilitated muscles can be described as tight. But it is not accurate to describe the inhibited muscles as loose. Ironically, because of the constant pull by the overly facilitated musculature, the overly inhibited musculature must increase its tone in an attempt to counter the effects, and ends up being, in a sense, tight and overly facilitated itself. Hence we have two opposing muscle groups: the tight and short facilitated muscles, locked-short; and the tight and long inhibited muscles, locked-long. Because the length-tension relationship of muscle strength demonstrates that a muscle is strongest at resting length and weaker when it is longer or shorter, we can say both groups of muscles across the joint are overly weak. The inhibited musculature might be relatively weaker than the facilitated musculature, but in reality, both groups are weak. Effectively, we have tight and weak musculature on both sides of the joint. A classic example of this is the anterior pectoral musculature (locked- short; tight and weak) and the posterior shoulder girdle retractor and thoracic spinal extensor musculature (locked- long; tight and weak). When applying this knowledge to manual therapy, we see that it is valuable to work the overly facilitated and the overly inhibited musculature because both groups are dysfunctionally tight and weak and are, therefore, likely to develop myofascial trigger points and fascial adhesions. This is important to recognize because there are many manual therapists who assert that only the locked-short musculature should be worked, likely because they feel that the opposing long musculature is already weak and would become even weaker if it were to be massaged and stretched. This is a fallacy. Manual therapy applied to any dysfunctional musculature, locked-short or locked-long, helps to restore the proper health and function of the musculature. Granted, the locked- short facilitated musculature should receive the lion's share of the work, but it is only when both groups are healthy and in balance that these postural distortional patterns can truly be improved.