Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/72343
THE LATERAL LINES We are journeying through the Anatomy Trains Myofascial Meridians in an effort to make some sense out of common structural compensations. In this series, we look at those deep postural conditions in terms of the coherent myofascial continuities that run along the body rather than only in terms of individual muscles or joint structures. We observe these characteristic postural and movement patterns in our clients every day—a drop in a shoulder, a twist in the pelvis, one foot more heavily weighted. We recognize that to really treat (as opposed to just alleviate) the presenting symptom, we need to fi nd the underlying strain, which can be centered somewhere quite distant from the site of injury or pain. So far, we have looked at common patterns in the Superfi cial Front and Back Lines (Image 1). These lines present a balanced pair—a shortness in the front will pretty much demand a complementary compensation on the back and vice versa. These two lines are not symmetrical—the myofascial arrangement and even the type of muscle fi ber differs substantially from front to back— but they nevertheless must strike a balance of some sort for us to remain standing and motivate into the world. We examined these lines as if they were singular and discussed their effect on our sagittal posture—lordoses, kyphoses, shifts of the pelvis, and other anterio-posterior compensation patterns. But there are in fact two front lines and two back lines—one just each side of the midline (i.e., there is a left Superfi cial Back Line and a right Superfi cial Back Line, exemplifi ed by the two erector spinae going up the left and right sides of the spine, and two Superfi cial Front Lines, as in the left and right sides of the rectus abdominis going up either side of the linea alba). We did not make a lot of hay about differences between the left and right sides of these two lines, because they are so close to the midline that neither of them are capable of exerting much force on the skeleton to bend it to the side.1 WHAT ARE THE LATERAL LINES? Now, as we turn to the Lateral Lines for this installment (Image 2, page 74), we are really dealing with two separate lines—the left and the right. Unlike The Superfi cial Front and Back Lines, which govern postural stability north and south, are actually two lines each—the left and right sides on either side of the sagittal midline. the front and back lines, whose right and left manifestations are snuggled right up against each other at the sagittal midline, the two Lateral Lines are far from each other at the outside edges of the body, and therefore often work very differently from each other. Thus they have to be assessed and treated separately, as we will see. If the front and back lines are the "north and south" of the body, then the two Lateral Lines are "east and west." For this reason, we call these four lines taken together the cardinal lines, as they defi ne the cardinal points of stability in our human compass— front, back, right, and left. Next time we will take on a line that winds tune in to your practice at ABMPtv 73