[:en]<i>Life is only an idea until you feel it in your body.</i>
Zeb Lancaster
When we observe the animal kingdom in its natural habitat, we see that the more agile, the more fit, and the more swift an animal, the longer its life expectancy, as it can maneuver better and avoid being killed by other predators. Modern science suggests a similar scenario for human beings. Many studies conclude that the quality of human gait dynamics is a marker of a person’s current state of health and a predictor of degeneration and aging processes in the future. A recent report in JAMA: The Journal of <i>American Medical Association </i>found that the speed at which people walk is an excellent indicator of their well-being and longevity. “Researchers found that predicting survival based on gait speed was as accurate as predictions based upon age, sex, chronic conditions, smoking history, blood pressure, body mass index, and hospitalization.”1 Scientists recently discovered that the angle and variability of our stride while walking can tell us a great deal about how our systems are aging. If your stride angle, variability, gait cadence, and speed diminish, you may be on the fast track to physiologic breakdown. The new biomedical pioneers even go so far as to postulate and statistically demonstrate that by analyzing gait dynamics they can predict the future health of other physiologic systems.2 Some data suggest that evaluation of gait dynamics over time is a more effective predictor of cardiovascular and neurological well-being than more traditional systems of measurement. “Aging is associated with a number of neurophysiological changes that may alter the locomotor system’s ability to generate stride-interval correlations.”3
Energy Cycles
If you want to know how efficient and effective someone’s structural organization is, just have him walk. Movement quality demonstrates how well energy is being used in each of the body’s systems. Energy constantly flows in and out of our bodies. Our bodies capture, store, and transfer energy. The human system is a perpetual motion – perpetual energy return system. The energetic flow of capture, storage and transfer creates a continual motion cycle that is constantly interacting with all of the matter, information, and energy flowing through our world. The more we keep the perpetual return cycle flowing, the more dynamically balanced we will be. Healthy systems are in a state of perpetual motion, perpetual interconnectedness, perpetual expansion, perpetual intercommunication, perpetual spiraling motion, perpetual polarization – and perpetual pulsation in their journey through space.4 The quality of the energy flowing through our perpetual-motion system is directly related to the quality of organization in our body’s structure.
Everyone creates their own structural organization from the movement patterns they repeat over time. The gait that each of us has is not a random act. Healthy gait dynamics are a direct reflection of healthy energy metabolism. Healthy structural organization keeps energy flow coherent in the body, which means energy can be stored and then effectively metabolized to do work. Structural disintegration/disorder can cause energy to become incoherent, stagnant, sporadic, or randomizing, which contributes to dysfunction and inefficient motion. Coherent energy has a centralizing quality, whereas incoherent energy is more diffuse and unconnected. Most human systems are a blend of centralizing and diffusing forms of energy. A balance of local freedom and global cohesion is a defining quality of a successful aging process and represents a harmonic blend of centralizing and diffusing energy flowing through our bodies in a balanced equation. The expression of local freedom and global cohesion, or its lack, demonstrates the quality of integration in a person’s structure and movement function. How well one is organized determines how well that person will use space in the present and in the future. As long as there is no loss in integrative, physiological responsiveness, the local components of movement in the body can do their individual thing. For example, if a knee joint is tracking omewhat variably over a short period of time, it probably will not affect global cohesion. If a knee joint continues to move out of a functional, tracking plumb line over time, this influence will spread to adjacent myofascial structures and cause a reduction in global cohesion/integration. For a high level of integration in movement, the local parts must “remember” their connections to the whole and stay aware of their “neighbors.” Whether or not a high level of integration exists is dramatically revealed when you watch a person walk. In healthy gait dynamics, we can see that each part gets to do its own local thing as long as it contributes to the greater whole. Intercommunication is the key to a reciprocally maintained system and the key to dynamic balance in our movement life. Too much local freedom in any body structure or function creates an enclosure state in which the “free” part loses its integrative connection with the whole, thereby diminishing global cohesion, flow, adaptability, and connectivity in the entire system. Fortunately, Rolfing® Structural Integration (SI) can alter how people organize themselves and provide a more efficient way of using space, which will result in a more integrated gait dynamic.
Complexity Rules
Surprisingly, scientists are now telling us that homeostasis is not a hallmark of healthy physiologic function.5,6 The steady state may not be a healthy state. Instead, the new physics postulates that system self-regulation is maintained through complexity and variability. New science is suggesting that when human systems become more periodic and rhythmic in their energy dynamics, and too constant in their movement dynamics, over time this can be predictive of system abnormality leading to pathology, disease, system failure, and accelerated aging. Medicine is using the wrong term by calling disease a “disorder” when, in fact, breakdown in the body arises out of too much order and a loss of complexity – often referred to as “pathologic periodicity.” A body that has become too regular and too rhythmic in its movement dynamics loses its cadence of centralizing and diffusing rhythms.
Excessive regularity in movement and structural order may be a precursor to breakdowns in the functional capacity of other body systems. Diminished variability and short-term excessive regularity is referred to as “mode-locking,”7 which we see in joint wear-patterns and changes in fascial pliability resulting from repetitive usage. A shuffling gait is an example of “mode-locking.” I have, for example, repeatedly injured my ankle while playing sports, which caused torn ligaments and created bone spurs in my left ankle. Over the years, I experienced a mode-locking phenomenon in my gait pattern, such that I could not fully articulate through my lateral and transverse arches. Rolfing SI and backward-walking patterning have restored normal motion and variability to my movement rhythms in my ankles and feet, allowing me to move more like my younger self and no longer need an ankle brace when I play competitive sports.
Systems seem to have an inherent drive for organizing themselves toward increased complexity and variability in their structural and functional geometry. A certain portion of irregular fluctuation is normal for a healthy, complex, variable system. We can’t rely on short-term evaluations of anyone’s body as our only assessment. Variability in a system must be observed over a long range of time. For example, in the short range, mild irregularities in beat-to-beat intervals in our heart rhythm may be seen as negative or unhealthy, but if it occurs only from time to time and not over the long range, it is probably a sign of healthy variability in the system.8 Science is finding that human systems function best through short-term variability in structural and functional components within long-range parameters of order. It has been observed that bodies fluctuate over short-time intervals and then become more rhythmic when a behavior (heartbeat, breathing cadence, stride interval) is viewed over a longer time-frame. Human beings are pattern makers and pattern seekers. Some patterns are more functionally efficient in the shortterm evaluation – but, if they become too periodic, linear, and predictable, and diminish complexity, they will actually reduce system variability and function quality over time. This suggests there is a range of healthy fluctuation, but there are also limits to the structural and functional variance any given system can handle. So a healthy heart rhythm is a variable heart rhythm within an acceptable range, a healthy respiratory rhythm is a variable breath cycle within acceptable ranges, and a healthy gait rhythm is a variable gait rhythm within acceptable limits.
We can conclude from this new information that the laws that support optimal functioning in healthy human systems are: the greater the variability in a system, the greater the complexity; the greater the complexity, the greater the adaptability; the greater the adaptability, the greater the polarization;9 the greater the polarization, the greater the sustainability; the greater the sustainability, the healthier the aging process.
Functional Plasticity
Along with a breakdown of functional order and integrative motion we also see in our age-fifty-plus clients a breakdown in muscle/fascia/ligament/tendon composition (sarcopenia) as well as bony changes (osteopenia). Structural disintegration can be seen as a functional marker or predictor of bone and muscle changes. Structural order and function break down first. A loss of functional plasticity or adaptability precedes disease processes or conditions that eventually get labeled by western medicine. Structural disintegration begins and balance and stride variability start to falter way before the bones thin out or the muscles shrink, eventually causing osteoporosis and the increased likelihood of fractures. From the molecular to the organismic level, healthy function is best supported by complex, dynamic, nonlinear, multidimensional performance in any of the body’s systems (cardiovascular, neurological, musculoskeletal). This is best maintained through SI.
In our work of improving structural order and function, physiologic laws of variability and integrated complexity are beautifully illustrated in the observation of human gait mechanics over varying time periods. Complex fluctuations are part of healthy gait dynamics. We need only watch people in our practices walk a little bit and the movement focal point of their complaints begins to emerge in their gait dynamics – and, as the scientists say, we can predict future disintegration in their systems. In observing the phenomena of the agingpredictive value of walking style in the larger population, just watch young children move, then observe teenagers walking, then observe the “weekend warriors” on your local softball team, and finish up with a visit to an assisted-living facility. Each of these groups exhibits different patterns of gait variability. The residents in a nursing home may have a variety of conditions from arthritis to Alzheimers to chronic pain to congestive heart failure – but they all have the shuffle of the elderly in their gait patterns as a common denominator. They usually exhibit a significant forward lean of the head and a subsequent drop in their visual horizon line with a narrowing of peripheral vision and a retraction of their personal kinesphere. This forward lean puts increased strain on the cervico-thoracic junction leading to myofascial splinting, fibrosis, and compression of discs/vertebrae and a shortening of the anterior longitudinal ligament creating the classic “dowagers hump,” a common site of osteopenia and osteoporosis. These adaptive changes influence their balance function and cause increased susceptibility to falls and fractures. It is hard to conclusively determine the line of cause and effect in this scenario, but we know that structural disintegration was a primary contributor to the lessening of gait variability and subsequent lessening of adaptive capacity during movement.
The new science suggests that the gait variability of these seniors diminished <i>before</i> their bodies manifested various pathological states, which were then given labels by a medical doctor.10 Bodies that break down with age are dominated by a steady-state frequency instead of a variable frequency. As we have all observed in our practices, as structural integrity, flow, and connectivity diminish, the functioning of human gait dynamics (stride length, stride angle, stride variability, stride tempo, and stride tracking) rapidly disintegrates and these imbalances quickly spread compensatory responses to other joint and myofascial structures. Observing gait dynamics gives us information on how the system is using energy, the degree of variability and adaptive capacity in the structure, and it gives us predictive clues as to where the body is starting to break down and how it will progress in the future.
SI increases movement variability through ordering, realigning, and improving functional relationships in the human system. Structural order and function, as represented by gait dynamics, is the movement metronome synchronizing and entraining other systems of rhythmic cadence in the body (heart, lymph, nerve, cerebrospinal fluid, etc). Human gait dynamics can be regarded as a physiologic control system (the conductor of the orchestra, the regulator of all body systems) keeping us in a complex, nonlinear, variable, and dynamic state of health. These new discoveries as to the role human gait dynamics plays in overall health moves the benefits of SI and function to the head of the line for health enhancements. This information should be shared with health professionals as being a first priority in seeking and maintaining health. The narrower our functional responsiveness, the faster we age. Functional plasticity is a hallmark of healthy aging and indicates enhanced structural and functional integration – and this is what we provide with our work.
Fractal Motion
There is a mathematical formula for efficiency in human systems. To understand how dynamic functions are represented in the body we need to know a little about fractals – very little, as I am not a mathematician. A fractal is a geometric or functional pattern that repeats itself at many scales of magnification. Science tells us that the body is very fractal at the level of structure, and it also appears to demonstrate fractal characteristics in its functions as well.11 The fractal dimension of the body shows up as self-similar geometry and function which displays itself in a variety of size scales – e.g., the branching pattern of capillaries, fascial bundles and planes, and neurological wiring in the brain as well as cardiac bundles and the tracheobronchial tree. From the fractal perspective, the whole movement of the system is taking place continuously in the parts at any size scale we wish to observe. Anatomic fractal-scaled geometry allows for very fast and efficient transport of all kinds of communication through our physiologic and structural systems. Fractal ratios govern healthy states in major systems of the body – cardiovascular, neurological, and biomechanical. Fractals seem to be a mathematical property of order and functional control in human systems. When the fractal geometry of body structures starts to degrade through repetitive patterning, people come to us with a variety of symptomatic complaints. With structural disintegration, complexity and variability degrade, leaving all systems diminished in the quality of their intercommunication and movement synchronization. This loss of proper mathematical relationships in our structure and movement leads to accelerated aging and an increased likelihood of developing disease.
What the system seems to be demonstrating is that it functions best through degrees of variability within ranges of predictability. Long-term ordering dynamics are often hidden by short-term patterns of disorder and the longer-term ordering influences tend to be governed by fractal ratios or intervals. If our gait patterns start to violate natural fractal ratios, we will age more rapidly. Because all of the systems are looped together, changes in gait fractals will influence fractal-ordering properties in other body systems, causing them to age prematurely. Because physiologists are finding out that gait dynamics are so important and predictive of future health, it won’t be long before health assessments will include something that we do every day in our Rolfing studios – observation and recording of gait dynamics (stride angle, stride length, stride variability).
The findings that conclude that gait dynamics reveal health status are good news for our profession, as we do more than any other modality to enhance SI and function and thereby improve healthy gait dynamics. Rolfing SI is a structural and functional anti-aging technology. The goals of SI should not just be to maintain constancy in structure and function, but, rather, to support the expression of complexity and variability, which, experts are now saying, is the hallmark of healthy human functioning.
We’ve always known that our work is important, but incorporating the implications of the new biomedicine information makes me even more impressed with the crucial role that SI can play in promoting human well-being. Our system has a greater likelihood of contributing to human functional plasticity (and, by extension, anti-aging properties) than any other therapy. We are trying to organize human structures, not only to prevent injury or alleviate symptom complaints and pain, but also to promote dynamic responsiveness and rapid integrated recovery when the system is challenged by illness, injury, or disease. Each person has a unique harmonic, or signature, frequency that should inform his body’s movement rhythms. Supporting this unique frequency should be a major goal of our work.
In our movement and structural work we need to capitalize upon the inherent yearning for connectivity, flow, and highlevel integration in our moving bodies. Rolfers’ eyes are trained to see when distortions of norm stand out – when, in fact, from the perspective of fractal dynamics, these may be healthy variants. Perhaps we need to look for what is the next step into variability as opposed to looking for the next “recipe” point towards imposed order. Rolfers must flow back and forth between local and global vision and touch to achieve a balance between a form-based and flow-centered perspective of balancing structural elements while enhancing functional processes that support system complexity and adaptability. With this type of focus we are more likely to assure a holistic outcome from our input. We need to be able to find the long-term order beneath the short-term confusion without suppressing or imposing limitations upon the system variability. We need to help our clients stomach the short-term dissonance to achieve the long-term harmony that the experts say will lead to the healthiest aging scenario.
Retromotion
Understanding the predictive nature of gait dynamics has led me to spend a lot more of my session time on the legs and feet than I was originally instructed to do by Ida Rolf’s “Recipe.” I follow the instructions that Jan Sultan gave (from my notes during my basic training in 1977), “Be observant and adapt accordingly.” My new understanding that gait dynamics are predictive of functional aging has also led me to develop and promote to my clients a variety of walking integration/locomotion exercises designed to restore complexity and variability to their gait patterns.
Of all the new movements that I have been sharing with my clients, the one that stands out as being the most beneficial and achieves the quickest results is teaching them backwards-walking patterns. In my thirty-four years of practice, prescribing different patterns involving backwardwalking, skipping, short- and long-diagonal and contralateral striding, high-leg sidestriding, and spiralic eversion/inversion foot plants with backward striding has provided wonderful results for a variety of knee, hip, ankle, and low-back problems, as well as improving stride-angle, stridelength, and stride-variability and creating more integrated and dynamic movement.
One of my clients was scheduled for a lumbar fusion and a knee “clean up” surgery in mid-July of 2010. He agreed to use the six weeks prior to his surgeries to follow a five-day a week backward-walking program in a swimming pool and to get a Rolfing session once a week. His results were so great that he canceled both surgeries and as of the writing of this article (February 2011), no surgeries are planned. I strongly believe that the backward-walking patterns he practiced enhanced the structural work and broke him out of longstanding patterns of inefficient movement. Backward-walking breaks down inefficient patterns by eliciting novel movement in underused structural/ functional relationships. Backwardwalking fits the criteria for high-level integration by supporting variability, complexity, adaptability, polarization, and sustainability in our moving bodies. To break old patterns, our systems need novel input that challenges our nervous, vestibular, and musculoskeletal systems. Backward-walking engages ligaments, tendons, and fascial planes through the major joints in unique ways, and recruits new levels of movement integration that challenge the vestibular system and create neural complexity. One of the highlights of backward-walking is that we get out of our eyes and into our vestibular and kinesthetic systems and begin to trust the feedback from our feet as a primary mode of perception. Visually-dominant perceivers have a more difficult time inhibiting their over-aroused nervous and vestibular systems, and their structure and function tends to age much more quickly. Backward-walking interferes with the visually dominant paradigm and makes you start exploring and trusting your vestibular integration capacity. Our relationship to gravity and space through our balance system is critical to the health of all movement patterns. Good vestibular balance helps to maintain a harmony between signals that facilitate, and signals that inhibit, movement adaptability. If our balance system is on hyper-arousal, our nervous and muscular systems idle at too high a pace and we will get tired more quickly, as we are pressing on the brakes and the gas at the same time. When we walk backwards, the back of the body becomes the predominant kinesthetic perceiver and tracker of movement and spatial dynamics. We are such a front-dominant culture. Anything we can do to improve the embodiment quotient or capacity of the back body will improve general functional integration in all structure and movement. Backward-walking is fun. It makes you laugh (or be laughed at by others as you walk “against the grain” or dominant motion paradigm).
If we want to move through life in a state of complexity, variability, and dynamic balance, our movement repertoire must be more variable. The more variable our movement activities, the more complexity we add to our nervous system, and the better our balance and gait dynamics will become. To break old patterns we must find new forms of movement input. The quality of the input that flows into our nervous system determines the complexity of our brain structure and body integration function. The law in neurology is “as you fire so shall you wire.” Our nervous and balance systems become smarter when we introduce new variability and complexity into our movement repertoires. This leads to a more adaptable, integrated and sustainable system. Any lessening of dynamic balance and movement variability in our bodies is a signal that our functional capacity is being lowered and that the aging process has sped up in that area.
It also seems to me that we could be doing more in promoting walking as a way for our clients to enhance the benefits of their SI work. You may wish to try taking your clients for a short walk during the first session, and you will learn all you need to know about their alignment, gait dynamics, and general functional adaptive patterns in motion. Exercise, such as walking, is great on so many levels, but walking in a structurally integrated, dynamic body is bliss! We must see ourselves as providing benefit way beyond the medical model of symptom alleviation and educate our clients as to how they can achieve health enhancement and longevity promotion as suggested by the research cited in this article. Our profession is ready for a breakout in its recognition as being invaluably important to contributing to the well-being of human systems by improving our clients’ gait dynamics with SI.
As I was completing this article, more articles related to the beneficial effects of healthy walking style came across my desk. These articles report that regular walking can improve brain volume (nerve growth in the hippocampus, the learning and memory area),12,13,14,15 diminish memory loss, and lower ratios of dementia and other forms of cognitive decline – all valuable contributors to human well-being. Perhaps these articles are a confirmation or just a coincidence. At any rate, for now, I’m going to relax and take a brisk walk!
<i>Movement is the freedom between time and space.</i> Ann Ree Colton
Endnotes
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