Postural Patterns
Humans are great at finding patterns. We create stories and predict the future with them. We memorise them and recognise them and use them as heuristics to wrap complex situations in fast decisions. Pattern recognition and use are one of the great triumphs of the human brain.
In computer programming a pattern is a way of organising your code to solve a certain kind of problem. The problem and pattern have to be well matched, otherwise the code that gets written is a bunch of spaghetti that makes no sense to anyone and it almost impossible to maintain.
In the body, a pattern is a way of organising muscles and joints to solve a certain kind of problem. There are 3 main problems that a body needs to solve: 'don't die', 'don't fall down' and 'move towards/away from that thing'. Let's call them 'breathing', 'standing' and 'walking'.
Muscles and joints have a very interesting effect on each other. There's an unconscious system constantly running that checks the amount of stretch and speed of movement and force being applied inside muscles, and updates the resting tone and length of every muscle automatically. It's called the Gamma System and it's one of the major systems that drive postural positions and automatic reflexes. It's simple job is this: update the 'resting length' of the muscles as the bones move around, so they don't get too tight or too wobblyThis system can end up 'patterning' muscles together into polyarticular chains (chains that cross multiple joints) that create a certain movement. For example, the AIC chain swings a leg forwards into flexion during walking. As the hip flexor pulls the femur up, it's actually pulling the leg towards the lumbar spine (psoas attachment) and the pelvis (iliacus attachment). This doesn't just move the leg, it also rotates the spine away and the pelvis forwards as well. The spine rotating away shortens the attachment points of the crural diaphragm fibres, and the gamma system contracts them. Which shortens the attachment points of the hip flexors, so the gamma system contracts them and so on until they hit end-range.
Likewise the pelvis going forwards shortens the attachments of the quads (rectus femoris) and tensor fascia latae (TFL) which the gamma system contracts and then those muscles pull the femur and pelvis together which shortens the attachments of the iliacus and the gamma system contracts......and so on until you get a self-reinforcing system that provides stability and an anchor point for twisting and rotating a body over the opposite leg. A great solution to that don't fall down problem from earlier, if you happen to be bipedal! In fact, if you install this pattern on both legs and alternate between them, you can solve the move forwards/away problem too. A similar chain and solution to breathing is found in the Brachial Chain of the torso.
Here's the issue though: in order to alternate you need to stop using the pattern when it's not the right solution to the problem, that is when the other side is addressing the problem. You can't walk if you swing both legs at the same time! What can happen in modern, sitting, social-media and money-using humans though is that the body keeps running these patterns all the time. Now the solution to the problem becomes a new problem: move forwards while not falling down and also breathing and staying in this pattern
Okay, so there's a few more muscles that can help with this. Quadratus lumborum can lift and rotate a pelvis & back muscles can rotate a spine & upper traps can shift the centre of mass to move things forwards; scalenes and pectoral muscles can lift and change the shape of the ribcage for breathing; quads can use that AIC stability to push the ground away at the expense of some knee twisting... the body can find a solution. But what it's doing is adding tension and adding tension and turning your postural system into spaghetti code.
When all it had to do was use a different pattern for a different problem.
Postural Restoration is all about refactoring that system into something easier, sleeker, full of less tension spaghetti code that solves the problem using the simplest solution.
If this has piqued your interest, why not get in touch to see if an online or in-person PRI assessment and program would be helpful for you?