The Good News, The Really Good News & The Really, Really Good News

What I’m after isn’t flexible bodies, but flexible brains….

Moshe Feldenkrais

In today’s world, where public opinion is divided on almost any topic, we all can agree on one thing: We have become stiff living in the modern world, filled as it is with chairs we constantly sit on and screens we cannot look away from.  

And nowadays everyone realizes the benefits of being more flexible.  Almost no one comes to my practice wanting to be less flexible*.  

The good news is that most people, no matter how stiff or how old, can be more flexible.

The second piece of good news is that while you may never reach the level of a contortionist, you do not need to. Unless you are a contortionist or want to be one.

The final piece of good news is that there are several ways to improve flexibility. In this article and the next, we will discuss one such approach. One that does not involve any stretching.

This approach will improve the way you move, reduce chances of injury and lead to better balance as well as improved flexibility.

We will also look at the three reasons why we feel stiff and three simple ways to be more flexible. 

Let us begin by asking some basic questions.  What does it mean to be flexible in the first place? Why do we become less flexible? And if we improve, at what point can we say we are flexible enough?

In physiological terms, flexibility is defined as “the ability of a joint or a group of joints and muscles to effectively move through an unrestricted and pain-free range of motion.” (Source: Yogapedia)

So flexibility can be across one or a group of joints and muscles.  And it requires unrestricted and pain-free movement across the range of motion.

In this article I will make the case that flexibility is not in the muscles or in the joints. It is primarily in the brain.

For it is the nervous system that controls the contractions of muscles to move the joints.

In order to be more flexible, you need to improve the way your nervous system controls movement.

This is a different perspective and a much more useful one.

When Dr. Feldenkrais reportedly said, “What I’m after isn’t flexible bodies, but flexible brains,” he was referring to the plasticity of the brain and its remarkable ability to learn and to improve.

The brain is said to be the most complex object in the known universe. It needs to be in order to handle movement. For movement is an extremely complicated task for the nervous system (See Chapter 2).

With around 200 bones, 640 muscles and over 200 joints, there are a lot of possibilities for movement available to the human body.  In fact, we have way more possibilities for movement that we use, or will ever use. Controlling these possibilities, or degrees of freedom, poses a big challenge for the nervous system.

This problem was first highlighted by the Russian neuroscientist Nikolai Bernstein, whom we met in the previous chapter on fitness.  

His most famous contribution to the field of motor control is called the “Degrees Of Freedom” problem.

Bernstein made a clear case for the complexity of human movement over that of machines. He claimed that in most machines, including the most complex ones, all individual moving parts have only one degree of freedom.

In the way he defined it, the term “degree of freedom” refers to the range of possible movements available to the moving object. A single degree of freedom allows for movement back and forth, along a single, pre-determined path such as the movement of a piston in an engine. 

While the machines in aggregate may be able to achieve varied and complex movements, each part of the machine moves along the same, precisely defined path.

He writes in “Dexterity And Its Development” (page 34), “The shape of this path may be quite different; some of the components may move along a curved path, whereas others move along straight lines, and still others move along ovals, and so on; each and every point, however, never leaves its predefined trajectory.”

So however complex machines may appear at first glance, they possess the simplest form of mobility.  The complexity lies outside of them as “there is always, however, a human being by the side of these machines who with his movements continuously controls all the movements of the machines, with separate keys or levers.”  Page 34.

Further, going from one to two degrees of freedom leads to an exponential jump in complexity, from a single predefined path to “an infinite, and quite arbitrary, variety of such paths.” (pg 34).

For example, if you take a pen and draw on a piece of paper, the tip of the pen is allowed just two degrees of freedom. Yet, the tip of the pen can trace an infinite number of shapes without ever breaking contact with the paper.  

The human body, well-endowed as it is with joints and movement possibilities, has significantly more degrees of freedom available than any machine or robot ever built.

The comparison is not even close. Let me illustrate this disparity by means of an example.  

Each hand, including the wrist, has 27 bones. According to Bernstein, “Fingers and the thumb, aside from other hand components, have 15 joints, and if one counts all the separate directions of active mobility in both directions (so-called degrees of freedom), the fingers of one hand have 20 of them.” (Page 29)

20 degrees of freedom in just the fingers of the hand!

These abundant degrees of freedom confer many advantages. For instance, they allow our hands to play the piano or tie our shoelaces. Or to effortlessly conform to the shape of any object we need to grasp, lift or manipulate.

This freedom, however, comes at a cost. Each degree of freedom needs to be controlled. And the effect of each additional degree of freedom is cumulative, leading to an exponential increase in complexity for the brain.

In fact, the amazing dexterity of the human hand is a result of these degrees of freedom combined with the control afforded by the human brain. As Bernstein puts it, “The flexible and rich mobility of the wrist, the base for the fingers and the thumb, makes the human hand a brilliant tool deserving the brain of its owner.” (Page 30).

The body as a whole had has even more degrees of freedom, many of which are redundant.  For example, a fingertip can be moved through space by bending one or a combination of joints in the finger, wrist, elbow and shoulder.  In effect, the brain is constantly faced with the decision as to which joints are allowed to move and which are to be restricted.

The forces acting on the body keep changing on a moment-to-moment basis during the course of any movement, increasing the demand required to control it. The nervous system responds by using sensory corrections to control the movement on an ongoing basis. Further, it restricts the redundant degrees of freedom which helps by stabilizing the body during the motion and makes it easier to control the movement.

Consider the difference between using weight machines versus lifting free weights such as dumbbells or barbells.  Most weight machines found in the gym allow only one degree of freedom, a single, pre-determined trajectory of motion. The machines, in effect, stabilize the movement for us externally.

On the other hand, when using free weights, the nervous system must stabilize the redundant degrees of freedom from the inside as we lift and lower the weights. That is the reason lifting free weights is more challenging that working out on weight machines.

When we are learning a new skill or an unfamiliar movement, we usually begin by reducing the degrees of freedom. We do this by preventing some joints from articulating during the movement. This is accomplished through muscular work which prevents the restrained joints from moving. The resulting movement may seem stiff or restricted, but it is easier to control in the beginning.

As our learning progresses and we become more skillful, we allow more joints to be unlocked and participate, leading to a more fluid, graceful movement which involves more of our whole body.

As a general rule, the skilled practitioner or master always prefers more rather than fewer degrees of freedom. For example, riding a bicycle is harder than a tricycle, but having learned to ride the bicycle, one would normally never want to ride the tricycle again.

Bernstein says that , “The bicycle is preferred, not because it is lighter, but because, in the hands of an experienced rider, it is more flexible and maneuverable, and, although this sounds strange, more stable than the tricycle.”

A novice tennis or golf player will swing the racquet or the club using just the arms and restricting the movement of the hips and the torso, significantly reducing the power of the swing. An elite pro, on the other hand, will swing from the hips and allow the shoulders, torso a well as the arms and even the wrists to participate in a smooth, powerful and swing.

The master is more “flexible” than the novice, able to unlock more degrees of freedom during the movement and still control the outcome. Indeed, the master’s movement is more consistent despite the extra degrees of freedom involved.

So in a way, flexibility is more akin to a skill to be mastered than a matter of stretching muscles or articulating joints.

Put in another way, poor flexibility results from a lack of skill rather than deteriorating joints and tight muscles.  

This line of thinking leads to a very different answer to the question, “How flexible does one need to be?”

So we are flexible enough if we have learnt to harness the degrees of freedom with ease during all normal movements encountered in daily life.

Unless you are looking to be a contortionist.

At this stage, a question comes to mind. Given that we have all these extra degrees of freedom, how do most of us still end up feeling stiff?

There are three main reasons and they are all interrelated. These are:

1. Unnecessary muscular work,
2. Super-specialization of movement &
3. An incomplete or inaccurate internal representation of the skeleton.

Let us look at each of the three reasons, one by one.

The number one reason that most people are not as flexible as their skeleton allows for is the presence of unnecessary muscular contractions.

We are often unaware of this extra effort present during every movement we make. Some of it persists even while we are at rest. For example, even when lying down, our lower back does not rest on the floor but is lifted a short distance away from the ground. This is due to unnecessary “parasitic” contractions in the extensor muscles of the lower back. 

These parasitic contractions can be a result of poor posture (Chapter 9) or lack of skill in an area where maturity is lacking or is under-developed (Chapter 3).

We intuitively understand that being more flexible and having good posture are inter-related. With good posture, the skeleton is aligned in a way that carries most of the body weight. Deep postural muscles do the rest, working with the sensory organs and the brain to keep the skeleton balanced in gravity with minimum effort.

In this way of thinking, the less the muscles have to work during any movement, the better our posture.  

In the case of poor posture, on the other hand, we do not make good use of our skeleton. As a result, other, non-postural muscles also end up being recruited to do the work against gravity. These muscles stay continually contracted and their ability to relax and lengthen, or to contract further for voluntary movement, is severely compromised.

The more muscular work we end up doing, the worse our posture. And the less flexible we are.

Lack of maturity, as we defined it in Chapter 3, can also result in habitual muscular contractions which we are unaware of.

When a skill or function is not mature, we exert more effort than is required in order to do what we want. While acting in a compulsive manner, we experience internal resistance to the same act. This inner resistance “is always expressed through muscular tension of the muscles of the face, the neck, the abdomen, the fingers, or the toes that can easily be detected if looked for.”

Whatever the cause, when we stiffen some part of our body unnecessarily, we reduce the degrees of freedom available to us. And that makes us less flexible.

When we say our hamstrings are “tight”, what we mean is that they are in a state of being continually contracted by our nervous system. This prevents them from sufficiently lengthening when we bend forward to allow us to touch our toes.

One approach is to stretch a muscle which is already contracted. This means effectively working against oneself.

For example if the extensor muscles in the lower back are habitually contracted, they resist the necessary flexion of the spine while bending forward. In this case, the lower back is being asked to extend and flex at the same time. No wonder our back feels stiff!

An alternative approach is to coax the nervous system into releasing the needless contraction, allowing the muscle to lengthen as necessary.

We can eliminate unnecessary effort and immature behavior by expanding our options for acting (Chapter 3) or by acquiring skill (Chapter 5).

If we look at flexibility in a broader sense, we can say that “It is the quality of being adaptable or variable.” (Source: www.freedictionary.com).

The qualities of adaptability or variability are required only in response to a change in the environment. So flexibility appears in a context, in relation to a new demand from the external world.

As we saw in Chapter 5, when we reduce muscular work, it improves our ability to make finer sensory distinctions, to be sensitive to smaller changes in the environment and in ourselves. 

Having finely tuned senses along with different options to act are very valuable under changing circumstances.

The finer the differences we can sense, the quicker and more number of ways in which we can respond. The more options we have to act, the more number of different environments we can comfortably and successfully operate in.

This brings us to the second reason for poor flexibility: Super-specialization of movement, both in the modern environment and as we age.

As we saw in Chapter 1, we have a tendency to narrow down our options for movement as we age. This specialization is made more extreme by the modern environment.

Looking down at screens all day presents us with fewer opportunities to look up to the sky. We become very good at sitting at a desk, going for the occasional walk on a concrete road in rigid shoes. 

Rigid shoes allow little movement in the 27 bones of the feet.  Level, paved roads require less mobility from the ankles and the hips. As a result, we are no longer used to walking on uneven ground.   

In Chapter 1, we learned about brain maps, the internal representations of each body part mapped onto the brain.  These maps are constantly refreshed by means of feedback from movements sensed in these parts. When the brain senses no movement in a joint, it “forgets” that part is moveable.

In effect, we gradually lose the degrees of freedom afforded by these joints due to lack of use. It is not that the joints themselves have deteriorated, it is our use of them which has become faulty.  

If eliminating walking bare feet or on uneven ground can impair our ability to move, imagine what happens when we remove entire classes of movement from our repertoire. With our modern lifestyle, several types of movement, from crawling to squatting to running to jumping, have been abandoned.

This is to our detriment as crawling, running, squatting and jumping inform our ability to sit and to walk.

Our resulting self-image becomes less complete and less accurate. Or it may be faulty to begin with.

This brings us to the third reason for poor flexibility:  An incomplete or inaccurate internal representation of the skeleton and its interconnectedness.

Even a simple movement, such as shifting one’s weight from one foot to the other while standing requires the precise cooperation of hundreds of bones, moving across multiple joints spread throughout the body. 

The nervous system must orchestrate all these moving parts while maintaining balance and other vital functions including breath (which requires separate movements from the ribs and the spine).

The more complete our internal representation of the skeleton, the more precisely our nervous system can organize for movement. For a well-organized person, the effort is evenly distributed across the muscles and the joints and the overall muscular work is also minimized. The resulting movement is skillful, effortless and with more degrees of freedom unlocked in the body.

When the internal representation is incomplete or faulty, movement is less well organized. The degrees of freedom available to us are not skillfully managed. As a result, we are more restricted, less flexible.

Let me illustrate this point using an example.

The hip joint is the largest and in some ways the most important joint in the body. Being a “ball-and-socket” joint, it allows for a large range of motion in all three planes of motion.

The way we use our hip joints has a huge impact on our posture, flexibility, balance and the overall health of the spine.

Look at the two ways of bending forward pictured in Figure 1.

If one pivots at the hip joints, letting the knees bend and the hips move backwards (Fig 1 c), it is easier to maintain the center of gravity within the base of support, keeping the body balanced. 

It also permits the spine to stay in a “neutral” position, the same as while standing. This helps to prevent injuries to the spine. 

Having lost mobility in their hips due to long hours spent sitting at a desk, most people have limited awareness of their hip joints.

In fact, most people are unaware of the exact position of their hip joints**. When asked to pinpoint where their hip joints are located on their bodies, they are unable to do so accurately. They often point to the top of the hip or even to the waist.  Therefore, they tend to bend at the waist, while preventing the knees from bending (Fig I b).

As we saw in Chapter 9, this posture not only puts more strain on the spine which is in an unevenly flexed position, it also leads to the center of gravity to shift in front of the feet, requiring the muscles in the back to contract in order to prevent one from toppling over.

These contractions prevent the muscles in the back of the body from lengthening, further detracting from flexibility. As a result, they are unable to bend forward easily and without discomfort. Their lower back hurts and they consider themselves inflexible.

Similarly, many people are not aware of the role the shoulder blade plays in keeping the shoulder joint healthy and mobile. The shoulder blade is connected to the back of the ribs only through muscular attachments which allows it to smoothly glide over the back of the ribs during movements of the arm and shoulder***.

The ball and socket joint at the shoulder, combined with the freedom of movement of the shoulder blade, allows for a large range of motion of the arm.

Many people, however, tend to prevent the shoulder blade from moving as they move their arm, severely restricting the range of movement available. These people tend to have shoulder problems or restrictions.

The hip and the shoulder joint are just two examples. There are many articulations of the spine, ribs as well as the feet, ankles and hands that we restrict either through poor posture or unskilled action. And we blame it on a lack of flexibility when it is a clear example of poor use of self.

Having covered the main reasons for poor flexibility, we shall next focus our attention to address them. In the following chapter we will look at three easy ways in which we can be more flexible.

I hope you will join me.

Notes:

* A small percentage of the population has hyper-mobile joints. They are too flexible and have trouble staying within a comfortable range of motion. But the majority would like to be more flexible.

**Do you know where your hip joints are? Here is a 1 minute video on YouTube which shows you how to locate them in your body.

***It is not widely known that the only skeletal attachment of the shoulder girdle to the torso is at the front, at the top of the sternum, where it attaches through the collar bone. Your collar bone is a part of the shoulder! Very few people are aware of how movements of the collar bone, or the lack therein, affects the mobility of the shoulder and the arm.