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"Man is something built around a gut." - Walter Cannon "Man is something built around a line." - Ida Rolf
Anatomy Trains and KMI: What is their relationship?The Anatomy Trains map and the KMI protocol that arises from this map are attempts to organize a systems approach to improving human structure and movement. In considering manipulation and movement education for performance enhancement or rehabilitation, both thinking and practice have been constrained within a mechanical model of human functioning. Like most analyses in Western academic tradition, the basis has been to break the body down into its component parts, and then examine how each part contributes to the whole. Thus we consider individual bones, muscles, joints, and nerves, and when considering pathology, seek to find which component part has broken down so that we can fix it. While this frame of mind is sufficient to tackle a broken automobile or factory machine, it faces certain limitations when applied to biological structures. While the mechanistic approach has fostered much research that has yielded many insights and valuable approaches in physical therapy, it has the unfortunate result of steering the mind's eye away from properties of the whole system not predicted by the properties of the constituent parts. Human movement is one of those whole system chaotic (in the mathematical sense) events that requires that the synergetic effects be considered, and the Anatomy Trains is a transitional map between the reductionistic traditional anatomy and the gestalt of the living body. Part of the basis for this new view is that the human body is not assembled in parts. It self-assembles from a single cell that proliferates wildly before differentiating into the different functional cells that make up our body. Concepts like 'muscle' or 'organ' are man-made concepts imposed on the whole which was never divided and never functioned separately until we approached it with a knife. The blade is the fundamental tool of anatomy, and the blade separates the parts for our inspection and research. But we must not forget that the divisions we make with the blade are our own, and not objective. For instance, the neatest divisions are made by going along the fascial planes of the body, which both separate and join each structure to its neighbor. The resultant picture - from the etchings of Vesalius to the most modern anatomical text - are this going to emphasize the divisions rather than the interactions. To focus down our microscope, to create a picture of a muscle - a deltoid, say, or a gastricnemius - this structure must be separated from its surrounding muscles and fascia, and cut at either end - what we call origin and insertion. This cutting turns the mind away from what effect the muscle may have on its surrounding neighbors - as in the case of the vastus lateralis, whose pressure out against the Iliotibial Tract is essential to the stability and integrity of the hip joint and femur. It also turns the mind away from considering the longitudinal effect the pull of the muscle may have via the connective tissue beyond the attachment. The Anatomy Trains Myofascial Meridians scheme maps the longitudinal connections through the fascial webbing. The premise is simple - follow the 'grain' of the muscle and fascia to look for tensional lines, straps, and slings that extend beyond the single muscle to traverse the body's segments. These extended lines of muscles then provide a picture of now stability is transmitted in proper function, and how strain is transmitted in the body in improper function. With this knowledge, we can unwind such strain patterns, often finding the source at some remove from the problem, e.g. low back pain may have its source in a fallen arch, or a cervical whiplash come to rest in a disturbed breathing pattern. Such knowledge does not negate what has been learned in the mechanistic process of the last several hundred years, but adds a new and dynamic dimension to such knowledge.  The fascial webbing develops as a 3-dimensional spider-web during the second week of embryological development. The muscles, bones, and organs develop within this web, shaping it and being shaped by it. This web is folded, stretched, and sealed through the rest of embryological development and the remainder of life. It can be cut with a surgeon's scalpel, torn by injury, frayed by age, shortened by strain, or made less functional by improper usage or less-than-optimal nutrition, but it will always remain one net.The Anatomy Trains are revealed by a simple change in orientation of the scalpel applied in dissection: By turning the blade on its side and lifting the attachment of a muscle from its connection to the periosteal covering of the bone, we see the continuation from one myofascial structure to the next, much like a string of sausages. We constrain ourselves to follow the lines of pull revealed in the fascial fabric, and what is revealed when we work this way is a system of 12 meridians (not acupuncture meridians, though there is significant overlap) which transmit movement, stability, strain, and ultimately limitation from one body segment to the next, often over several to some distant place that takes the effect. These continuities run up the front, back, and sides of the body, around the body in helical patterns connecting the limbs ipsi- and contralaterally, and up through the body's core surrounding the organ systems. KMI is a system of myofascial manipulation that is built on this insight. Once the relation among these meridians can be seen and assessed, the KMI protocol can be used to restore easy function and unimpeded transmission along these lines. The KMI series of sessions works systematically with the tissues to open the body's sleeve, awaken and balance the core tissues, and then bring harmony to the interaction among the lines of muscles and sinews that form a tensegrity network in which the bones move. The Anatomy Trains represents a significant step forward in mapping the relation between stability and movement in the unique human plantigrade posture, with its tiny base of support and high center of gravity. The KMI soft-tissue / education protocol represents one application of this map to an overall systemic therapy. |
Anatomy Trains |
