Bone X Muscle X Bone
AKA Expansion and Contraction
Happy Friday!
I had another busy teaching day on Wednesday so I decided to take the evening to rest and watch the last episode of The Studio. It’s without a doubt the best series I’ve seen this year and I can only strongly suggest that you check it out. So apologies to those of you who were looking to kickoff your Thursday with a blog!
To the Blogsss!!!
This week I thought I’d try to give you a little more context for all of these skeletal drawings I’ve been doing. One of the big ideas that is underlying the Alexander Technique is that the way we conduct ourselves in everyday activity can have an affect on our overall well-being. While this absolutely touches upon things like “mental stress”, it also touches upon how we organize our physical structure.
Rather than go about and talk about if you should “sit up straight” or fret over the dangersss of slouching, I’m going to show you some dumb drawings of how muscles connect to bones. These are NOT anatomically accurate but will hopefully illustrate a point.
In the image above, I have given you 3 examples of how a muscle can be in various states of tension in between two bones. The states of tension are triggered when the brain sends a command to the muscle that says “please do X amount of work”. Full rest is attained when the brain STOPS sending a signal to the muscle in question.
Only upon your inevitable death will you achieve a full emptying of energy in your muscles. Please don’t try this at home.
In the first example, I have drawn a long muscle in between the bones. On the right, I have labeled it as low effort. As energy is added to the muscle, we find ourselves in the second example of medium length and medium effort. Finally, we find that we can completely shorten the muscle in between the bone by exerting a BIG effort.
This gives us a Bad General Rule1: muscular effort will reduce the space in between the bones.
It is worth noting at this point that your muscle fibers do not have a start point and an end-point. They expand and contract along the whole length of the fiber. We don’t really want to think of a muscle pushing us up or pulling us down; the fibers expand and this expansion creates space between bones.
The above bold-ism is just a way of rephrasing the Bad General Rule in the contrapositive.
On Held States
All of the states above are perfectly normal and healthy. One of the most misunderstood sayings in the field of orthopedics is “motion is lotion”. If misinterpreted, you might believe that by walking and running and being very active you will achieve a good state of joint health.
Unfortunately, sometimes we will have muscles that decide they will permanently stay in a very shortened state or a very lengthened state. This is akin to one muscle thinking that they must be permanently active and another being on a permanent vacation. If this is you, then simply going for a run may not kick that sleepy muscle into action and it may only further stress out a muscle that is already fully shortened!
This does not mean that I want you to sit around and wait for everything to come into perfect harmony before you do something with your life. This just means that if something feels off you might have a held muscle state (and a helicopter that isn’t flying). Rather than immediately jumping into what you can do during a run to STOP that neck from being tight, let’s take a look at how the [Bone X Muscle X Bone] examples above can apply to a FAKE Person.
Vertical Bone X Muscle X Bone Model
Above I have made 2 dumb drawings of FAKE people standing. Neither example A nor B are concerned with correct or incorrect standing - don’t concern yourself with that idea. Instead, you can look at how the structures of these dudes can change based upon the amount of muscular length (and effort).
In State A and State B, we have a person that is balancing upright. The biggest difference most people will see between A and B is the difference in height. This difference mostly comes about by a shortening of the neck and leg muscles in State B (the stomach is slightly longer in B).
Theoretically, you can imagine that if you were to hold yourself into State B you would need to exert more muscular effort than if you were in State A. With more muscular exertion, we can expect that State B will feel fatigue set in faster than in State A. In other words, State B is less energy efficient.
One of the big things we want to learn in the Alexander Technique is how to transition from A to B and from B to A. This skill gives us more choice in how we go about our everyday activities. In essence, I am personally learning this skill so that I can choose to be more energy efficient during the day.
What I’m NOT Talking About Today
So far, I have left out all mention of thoughts, gravity, 3D structures, ice cream, and all of the internal organs and bits and bobs that make things REAL and VIVIDLY ALIVE. As I have a math degree, I’m quite good at talking about fake models! But with such a theoretically trimmed down version of [Bone X Muscle X Bone] you could be wondering how this actually applies to YOU.
When I work on myself or with a student, I will frequently catch someone making a strange reaction as they attempt to THINK about softening and lengthening their neck. At the thought of softening the neck and flying the helicopter of the head, I/they begin to shorten a muscle area of the torso and exert energy in that region. It’s almost as if we think that in order to lengthen the neck we must achieve this by pushing the chest up into the base of the neck. It’s a version of Left / Right confusion and we want to find some way of identifying this habit and breaking it.
Part of the reason for today’s post is to leave you with a dastardly simple idea; a muscle cannot push your head up2. Instead, what we really want is for tight muscles to expand into length - in 2 directions and without ANY push. If you have a sense of the bones on either side of the muscles, it is significantly easier to invite this expansion.
So again, WHY all of the skeleton drawings?
If I ask you think [Bone X Muscle X Bone] = [Head X Neck X Chest], then you simply need to think of the head and chest existing in opposition of one another as the neck expands. For some folks, this absolutely will generate length in the neck, an addition of overall height, a decrease in tension, and all of the other goodly things that we wish. But for others, this simple thought will do nothing.
For many folks, this is partly due to the fact that most of us have NO IDEA how long our neck is or how any part of us is organized. By learning a little bit of anatomy, I hope that you will be able to play these [Bone X Muscle X Bone] games of expansion and contraction. In time you will be able to use this little equation to cook up all sorts of variations for yourself!
Examples of [Bone X Muscle X Bone] Games:
Head X Neck X Chest - game type : general
Chest X Shoulder X Arm - game type : general
Torso X Hip X Leg - game type : general
Skull X Connective Muscles X Top Vertebra - game type : specific
Skull X Connective Muscles X Jaw - game type : specific
Hand X Connective Muscles X Thumb - game type : specific
Head X Torso X Legs - game type : general
I think these games are best learned while lying down, sitting, standing, or walking quietly on your own. If you try these out while attempting something more complex, you may find it too challenging. Don’t be afraid to play this game on easy mode!3
Get In Touch
If you’re in NYC, you may learn more about my private teaching practice at johndalto.com.
If you’d like to book any lesson time with me, you can find my booking link here.
The diaphragm violates this rule. When it contracts it pushes the ribs wide.
Or any other part for that matter.
At the end of the day, these examples only make sense when we also have a sense of weight, balance, and calm clear thinking.
A lot to think about and play with❤️