Disturbing the balance has a detrimental effect on the quality of movement from the body and increases the wear and tear the joints experience from moving. Your body relies on fluid coordination to create ideal movement, as well as control how the joints articulate. Conversely, the overactive muscles get called on too often and too intensely. The slow, underactive muscles get called on less often and slower than the others. The messages from the movement centers of your brain to the muscles are affected by the efficiency of the connection. Your underactive muscles have the neural equivalent of a 56K dial-up modem whereas the overactive muscles have the equivalent of a high speed broadband connection. I liken it to an internet connection in a way. This relationship between muscular tension and nervous system input explains why muscles in a state of imbalance also have altered recruitment in motion. Those that are overactive essentially have a chronically increased pulse rate those that are underactive have a chronically decreased pulse rate. When a muscle imbalance is present, we are presented with a combination of overactive and underactive muscles. As it decreases tension, the pulses become slower. And because muscles change their degree of tension when they change position, the change of position must also change the pulses from the nerves (and ultimately the brain).Īs a muscle increases its tension, the rate of the pulses must become faster. Well, all muscles have tension therefore all muscles must be receiving a pulsating signal from the nerves rather than a continuous one. It turns out that it is not the electricity but the change of electrical state that causes a muscle to contract. In order to produce a state of ongoing contraction (latent tension in the muscle), the electricity has to be applied in rapid pulses. When a continuous current is applied, the muscle contract upon the application of the shock but then relaxes, despite the persistence of the electrical energy. It would stand to reason that a continuous course of electricity would then cause a continuous contraction, right? Well, it doesn’t. One of the interesting relevant bits of information from the aforementioned studies is related to this latent tension.Ī pulse of electricity causes a muscle to quickly contract and then relax. This tension preserves the necessary space that a given muscle occupies, and serves to hold the bones, joints, and posture in place. Your muscles don’t sag off the bone when not in use. All muscles have a certain amount of tension imparted to them at all times. These experiments have yielded a lot of very interesting and beneficial information. Since the earliest days of the electrical era, people have been doing experiments on muscles and nerves using electricity. The input from the nerves is delivered in the form of electrical impulse. It is the nature of the way the relationship between muscles and nerves works.Ī muscle contracts when it receives input from the nerves to do so. It is my belief that these two aspects are inextricably tied to each other. Altered reciprocal inhibition not only affects the body due to its changing of muscle tension, ARI also changes the way the brain’s signals are relayed through the nervous system. (Because it’s important to distinguish between normal reciprocal inhibition, which is healthy and necessary, and altered reciprocal inhibition, from here forward I will abbreviate for altered reciprocal inhibition with ARI)īefore we begin talking directly about the solutions, it’s important to go into a little more detail on how it works. Since we covered the definitions, fundamental causes, and primary effects of altered reciprocal inhibition last week, this week we’ll be discussing solutions. Because latent muscular tension is what holds the bones and joints in their relative positions, altering the levels of tension in various muscles will, by necessity, affect the position of bones and the alignment of joints. The amount of tension produced by the muscle changes as it adapts. We’ve begun to see how postural alignment, repetitive motions, and daily demands can begin to alter the state of your muscles. This week we’re picking up where we left off last week, with reciprocal inhibition.
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