Saturday, September 21, 2013

Bandwidth and muscle length as it relates to Postural Restoration

                     Recently I looked up the definition of the word " Bandwidth" in the dictionary. ( I had to, after being told in no uncertain terms by someone I considered a friend, that I lacked the bandwidth for a special undertaking)  Apart from the electronic world, bandwidth was defined as " the energy or mental capacity required to deal with a a situationNow,for those of you who know me well, I think I have enough physical energy as I go about my day, so I guess my mental capacity must be in question :-) Well, I always try to make the most of any situation, so I wanted to see just what I could do with this one. It got me thinking about how in the Postural Restoration world, we come across muscles that do not have the capacity to work like they should because they are not in the correct "Position". They are either too long or too short due to altered position of the underlying bones. For instance, the left half of the pelvis tends to tip forward and orient to the right because of the weight of the liver on the right and a stronger, thicker right diaphragm leaflet. As a result, the hamstring attachment moves upwards on the left, placing the hamstring in a lengthened position. Now the lengthened hamstring has to work harder i.e requires more energy to do its job effectively. So basically, it does not have the "capacity" to do its job. Now , there is a solution to this problem in the Postural Restoration world.  Correcting the position of the underlying bone ( what the PRI world calls repositioning) can "facilitate" the muscle to work effectively and we can gain its "bandwidth" back. ( Now if only there was a similar solution for my lack of bandwidth!)


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