Paul’s article “Isolation is dead” reveals a great technical explanation of what science and research has shown and proven in recent years about conditioning the body. It describes brilliantly what great minds have discovered in a very specialized area; movement. I will attempt to convert this information into a more practical format to allow a clearer appreciation of a very important component of movement; integration.

Let’s take one step back and look at the body in common sense. Just ponder for a minute as you read this article and think about your body; think about every breath you take, the blood that is running through your veins, the position of the body or even how your body moves. When you stand up and walk to get a drink or cup of tea do any of these systems work by themselves in isolation? Do you consciously control or activate these systems?

In fact all systems of the body have integration. The cardio vascular, respiratory, nervous, muscular, fascial (connective tissue), skeletal, endocrine (hormonal), lymphatic, visceral systems just to name a few all rely on integration or communication to enable the body to move and perform everyday activities.

I have to come clean here I am a geek of movement. I observe constantly how people and animals move. If you look at various age groups in the human race you will learn a lot about movement. Look at what a child will do when they take their first few steps; are they big movements or small? What feeds information to the body from the ground up? Do they consciously control their movements? No the body reacts. These questions should now be starting to stimulate our thought process and hopefully challenge how we traditionally condition or train our bodies.

As we develop in our younger years we constantly condition the body to integrate. Everything we do at a young age involves running, jumping, chasing, wrestling, hopping, climbing and every other thing you can imagine. The more kids perform these activities the better their fitness, balance, power, strength, stability, endurance and happiness.

Why then do we stop these movements as we get older? Age!

Let’s look at how the foot can affect the rest of the body, maybe then we will have a clearer understanding on integration.

If we look at the ankle it has 33 joints; 3 at the ankle and 30 in the foot. It also has three arches (diag 1); one longitudinal medial arch (top pic), one lateral longitudinal arch (bottom pic) and one mid foot arch (middle pic). If it moves well then all of the forces that that are being generated up the body from the ground will be dissipated evenly over all joints. Think of it as the first part of an amazing suspension system that decelerates the incoming forces, not unlike a set of leaf springs on a trailer. At the same time this dissipation of forces gives feedback helping to turn on the stabilizers of the ankle, hip and trunk. We need integrated movement to activate the stabilizers!!

DIAG 1

As previously mentioned fascia (connective tissue) plays a much larger role in the body than first thought, not only does it envelope all nerves and muscles but it continues in various lines/directions throughout the body (anterior, posterior, lateral and spiral). It has high tensile strength but also has a contractile component (able to stretch and contract). When the myofascial (muscle, nerves and fascia) system stretches it stores energy (3-9 times more than a contraction) which then results in a contraction or shortening; simply put every movement starts with a load (lengthening, stretch) and finishes with an unload (shortening, contraction).

Try this, stand up and pretend you were going to throw a ball. If I was to throw a ball forward, first I would have to take my arm back, whilst taking the arm back can you feel your ribcage starting to stretch or turn on? As this stretches you will feel the opposite hip stretch doing the same thing. In fact if you follow that feeling of stretching or loading it continues right down to opposite side ankle. So to create a throwing motion you must first load (stretch) the entire body which will result in a unload (contracting) of the entire body.

Traditionally we have placed more importance on the muscles and nerves individually for feedback, strength and movement hence why the isolated approach in conditioning the body. Recent research has changed that philosophy drastically allowing us to gain far more effective results through training the body in an integrated manner as in diag 2.

DIAG 2

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Let’s take a look at some lines of fascia that cause movement in rotation in the body.

Here you will see pictures of the total body from a rear and front view and you will notice that there is a green line running in a spiral manner up and around the body; that line depicts fascia which aids in rotational movements (gait, running, tennis etc). Notice in the rear view how the fascia starts at the ankle complexes works its way up the calf and hamstrings across the butt onto the trunk further up the back and around the shoulders into the cranium.

If we apply this to walking, it would mean that every time your right heel hits the ground and your left shoulder rotates forward there would be a tensioning or stretching (loading) of that entire line of force (nerves, muscles, fascia) meaning that it will cause a contraction (unloading) resulting in movement or ambulation (gait). The body is constantly integrating in movement.

Discovering these lines has allowed us to improve the efficiency and also the effectiveness of preparing our bodies for movement. It has allowed us to decrease discomfort/pain in the body, to decrease the compensations that everyday activities like sitting create and to also to improve our abilities to succeed in everyday challenges.

So the next time you go to the Gym or are playing a game with your kids, just pause briefly and appreciate the brilliance of integration of the body!