Leigh Blyth BVM&S. Here to share my Base-Line Theory of Health and Movement—the key to better health. Grounded in some basic anatomy, the the 5 main muscles for a full range of natural movement, body alignment and balance. Hoping for some thoughts and feedback.
leggi
Karma: 326
Greetings!
My name is really Leigh - leggi was a nickname created by technology but bestowed on me by good friends and somehow it seems appropriate to use it here.
I’ve been reading the HP series—it’s made me laugh out loud a few times but now that I’ve realised how many chapters there are I thought I should introduce myself because I’ve my own drum to beat...
I have a theory (well technically a hypothesis but theory sounds better in the title!) and I’m here for feedback on my upcoming posts—please think “tear to shreds”.
I’m not sure where the line between knowledge and belief lies, but I really really think I am so lesswrong about this than I’ve ever been about anything so it’d be nice to have others really consider what I’m suggesting.
A bit of anatomy to start, but it will expand so anyone out there anatomists/medics/people in pain/anyone who moves/is curious?
I haven’t understood many of the posts I’ve looked at—rather different topics to what I’ve encountered in life. I was a veterinary surgeon, so that’s my background.
College motto “strive for perfection”, my motto now “better done than perfect” so at least this post’s a start!
Physiologically, the body can keep going for a long time if it is healthy and well maintained.
The body needs good nutrition (“real food”, adequate water), physical activity to maintain function and enough sleep.
Meet these conditions and your workers should be able to keep on going, but what’s your definition of “work”?
Agrarian based work (for some) is already every day, all year. As many hours as can be worked, are worked.
Anyone that enjoys their work, that has a drive to do it, can manage 15 hrs a day.
Sitting at a desk, staring at a screen, drinking a lot of coffee and eating processed food … not so good physiologically.
I am finding the phrasing “could a person be trained” is a little concerning… Who’s asking?!
An ambitious junior vice-president in a ethically dubious multinational corporation?
A pragmatic intergalactic manager wondering if Earthlings have a use more than as for fodder?
“Trained to enjoy” - I’d probably research altering the human brain to achieve that. Possibly fry a couple of appropriate synapses or find the right combination of chemicals.
Unless you start the ‘training’ at an early age—if you don’t know any different then 100 hour work week is just how it is.
I agree anatomy is an important topic. We’ve all got bodies. Although wonder for how long that will statement still hold true!
I had a look at the links. The abstract of the paper doesn’t mention the origin of the muscle (as far as I can see) so I go-ogle imaged “tensor of the vastus intermedius” and “articularis genus”. One is at the top of the femur the other at the distal end, so they don’t appear to be the same muscle.
I struggle to read anatomical descriptions. Pictures and palpation - a much better way to learn human anatomy in my opinion. (If I could be so bothered I’d commission pyjamas to teach anatomy.)
I’m hopefully close to finishing the anatomy I want to share, I’m aiming for easily understandable rather than overly detailed.
I’m currently working on the most logical order of presentation for the sections of my hypothesis, working from anatomical “facts” to my thoughts and conclusions which is an interesting experiment in itself.
The quadriceps femoris is a label for a group of muscles. The rectus femoris, vastus lateralis, vastus intermedius and vastus medialis. The four largest muscles at the front of the thigh sharing a common insertion.
To include the tensor of the vastus intermedius and articularis genus in a description of some form, then:
the anterior thigh muscles could be called the “hexiceps”
these smaller muscles could be described as accessories to the quadriceps
Most anatomy is simplified in some way. Delineations and groupings are made to aid learning and understanding, and the focus tends to be on the larger muscles, or those prone to pain, but musculo-fasico-skeletal anatomy tends to blend into adjacent structures much more than is generally appreciated so it is unsurprising that smaller muscles are not of common knowledge.
Interestingly the rectus femoris is the only one of the quadriceps femoris muscles that attaches to the pelvis—the only one to cross both hip and knee joints, and in my mind should be considered as the guide muscle for the rest of the quads.
Body Alignment & Balance. Our Midline Anatomy & the Median Plane.
Right well that’s it. I’ve published my first post. I’ve been going round in circles trying to sort the last section and quite frankly I’ve had enough..…
I thought I’d get it done in a week, it’s now been 15 days and since it turns out I have a motto (never knew until I typed it!) I’m gonna just publish and see what happens.
Thanks for reading.…
Art of thinking? - If that means thinking about things, then this is something to think about… (and the sources of all the information needed are within easy reach.) Relevance to rationality? - As the start of a logical progression to explain my beliefs, then yes… This is the root that will develop several branches, but it needs time to grow.
I have multiple possible hooks, but they’re all jumping to my conclusions - “facts” first.
Why should your care about your alignment and balance (there’s a ding ding ding we have a winner for “bits that bother me” in my head). I believe you should, and that the alignment of the body (and a full range of movement) is important to health, but what ‘evidence’ do I have of that?
My personal opinion that balance and alignment sound good qualities.
My personal experience—but I’m just a random on the internet, so there’s little point to expanding on that, at least until the groundwork is laid.
Many physical disciplines go on about balance and alignment - a common phase in some circles - but I’ve little experience in such disciplines so can’t comment on that!
So nothing that should be convincing, but balance and alignment sound good don’t they? :)
I am hoping for feedback about what balance and alignment mean to others. I’m in my own little micro-bubble (a true believer) and would be interested in other perspectives.
Ultimately, this is a journey from ” fact” to “feeling”. My next post will expand on the muscular anatomy of balance and alignment, and include my thoughts on that anatomy. How to start to feel your alignment...
I’d say start with The Colour of Magic. Then Jump to Mort if you must (Books 2 and 3 aren’t amongst my fav’s but disc-world develops, if you like doing things in order....). But that’s just my take on it :)
HP has been a fun ride (chapter 3 I’m thinking ‘what a little shit, I like him’) and it will be interesting to see where it ends.…
Although I was a little worried about how much I laughed at ”.… ….. I’ll thank you not to speak ill of it until you’ve tried it for yourself”
The Five Main Muscles for a Full Range of Natural Movement, Dynamic Alignment & Balance.
My second post: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/pXmztcFqiAHX5J8JF/the-main-muscles-of-movement-dynamic-alignment-and-balance
It should be of interest to anyone with a body who isn’t aiming to upload themselves onto some sort of neural net in the next 6 months or so.… I want to say positronic brain but I watched too much Trek in my youth!
In summary, the 5 (paired left and right) muscles to focus on:
Pelvic floor “Base”
Rectus abdominis “Line”.
Gluteus maximus.
Rectus femoris.
Trapezius.
Learn to work with these muscles and use your body better. Feel what I mean.
…. If Steve says, “Information should be free!” and I’m trying to understand what he means,
here’s what I’d say: ….
What do you mean by information?
Edited to add: It seems a good idea to me to try and clarify what Steve means—being more specific rather than jumping to ‘bottom rungs’, likely influenced by personal biases.
And personally, I believe knowledge is better shared that sold ;)
When I had a quick go-ogle search I started with:
“melatonin stability temperature”
then
“N-Acetyl-5-methoxytryptamine”
A quick flick through a few abstracts I can’t see anything involving temperatures higher than 37 C i.e. body temperature.
Melatonin is a protein, many proteins denature at temperatures above 41 C.
My (jumped to) conclusion:
No specific data found.
Melatonin may not be stable at high temperatures, so avoid putting it in hot tea.
For the sake of completeness (at least in my head!),
here is my third post:
Following on from the ‘main muscles of movement’ and the midline anatomical markers for alignment, consider what you experience when thinking about the position, motion and balance of your body—your sense of proprioception.
I definitely appreciate the idea of a “safe link” marker to other pages on LW.
The LW is (fairly) obvious as to what it means (especially to new users), and I don’t find it obtrusive ( I am on a biggish screen).
Full disclosure - I like seeing the LW on my links!
Looking for an anchor?
A base point—solid rather than dangling …
Conscious Proprioception.
Your comment invoked a whirlwind of emotion! From excitement and a “yay does someone else get it?” to my ego thinking “oh-no someone else has already figured this out” (and certain sense of relief when I read the article if I’m being totally honest).
The concept of body alignment and balance being a good thing is far from new (to be discussed a bit in further posts I’m working on).
I have spent the last couple of years searching to see if my perspective on the ‘anatomy of alignment’ is already out there but I’ve not found it, which still surprises me because
a) using the midline anatomy and the median plane as guides seems so obvious to me now
and
b) movement feels natural and ‘right’ now that I have learned to use my ‘main muscles of movement’. Everything else falls into place.
I search for others who are willing to think about the state of activation and balance of these 5 main muscles …. to work on the connection between body and mind …. to start to feel what I mean.
my impression of what you were proposing was that it was a fake framework.
I’m going to say no. This is not a fake framework. The ‘5 main muscles of movement’ ARE the central muscular framework of the body. The muscles that, when free to fully function, allow a full range of natural movement and dynamic alignment of the body.
The muscles are paired—left and right sides—so technically that’s 10 muscles—but 5 is the correct nomenclature, and sounds less daunting to anyone who doesn’t know much anatomy.
The only fake framework is considering the pelvic floor muscles as one unit (of two halves). The anatomy of the pelvic floor is complicated, and the details unimportant to using these muscles so I’m happy to consider them as one muscle functionally.
I haven’t come across/paid much attention to the term ‘somatic therapy’ before but it was interesting to see Pilates at the bottom of the list. I began this journey with Pilates classes and my hypothesis developed from my experiences and observations of trying to do Pilates exercises.
I believe Joseph Pilates figured out how to use his body correctly but didn’t realise the underlying anatomy—the 5 main muscles to focus on. Looking at his original work return to life and what he called contrology (I can’t pronounce that out loud!), ‘the hundred’ is the introductory exercise—there was no way could I have done that when I started—I couldn’t even lift a leg of the ground without using my arms to pull it up.
I discovered the Base-Line muscles (pelvic floor, rectus abdominis) are the primary muscles to focus on to improve the usage of the body and also to develop our conscious proprioceptive skills so we can feel the condition and relative position of the body for ourselves.
You mention linea alba as being important, but I don’t recall others mentioning these as key.
I haven’t come across others mentioning the importance of the linea alba either. I am presenting a new perspective on the alignment of the body, grounded in the anatomy I hope! - it is.
The linea alba is important because:
It part of our midline anatomy and the relative positioning of the midline anatomy is what we should use to judge the alignment of the body.
It lies between the Base-Line muscles and so is the primary linear midline anatomical structure that we can become aware of by focusing on these muscles.
The nuchal and supraspinous ligaments (being linear midline structures as well) are also important markers for alignment, but everything extends from Base-Line...
some somatic people are obsessed with psoas muscles. I don’t think your framework mentions them..
Many muscles get mentioned/obsessed over/are prone to syndromes and pain. But they are all secondary to the main muscles in my opinion, the muscles that are burdened when the central physical framework provided by the main muscles of movement is not adequate. We shouldn’t look at things in isolation either (to be expanded in my next post).
… to what extent it aligns and diverges from other frameworks. Where it has things in common, it probably is on more solid ground
I don’t feel the need to try and fit my hypothesis with other frameworks—there’s a lot out there and I just don’t have the time for a start. There are bits of truth in many things but this is ‘the bigger picture’. I believe I am correct. I feel it. I know it. (I’m not sure where the line between confidence and arrogance lies but I’ll go with confidence!)
Ultimately this is something to experience by focusing on the relevant anatomy and feeling for yourself, not for me to convince you of—although I very my appreciate your comments and questions—please keep them coming! I’ve just published my 4th post aboutposture and poses. (mostly definitions setting up for post 5).
That made me laugh! Can’t think of much difference in the early years.