In a ground-breaking publication, neuroscientist and Alexander teacher, Tim Cacciatore and his colleagues bring together research that has previously been scattered across diverse fields of knowledge (e.g. biomechanics, neuroscience, animal physiology and pain science) [1]. Taken as a whole, this work explains how we humans are able to carry out our activities of daily life, while simultaneously staying poised upright against gravity. It also helps us understand how this capacity can often go awry, resulting in tension, discomfort and sometimes, chronic pain.
Despite the fact that muscles have been studied intensely by scientists over many, many decades, most of the focus has been on what we might colloquially call our ‘doing muscles’ – muscular activity that is under our direct voluntary control and which we use to carry out a myriad of different everyday actions. In contrast, surprisingly little attention has been given to how our postural system works. Postural muscle tone is fundamental to how we maintain our upright stance – it supports us against gravity. It is also central to maintaining stability while we carry out our everyday activities. For example, if I reach out to pick something up, I will be using various muscles that are under my direct voluntary control that I need for the specific action (a classic example would be using my biceps to flex my arm). This is all well and good but without the appropriate underlying postural tone across my whole self, I may not be able to easily stay in balance while I pick the object up. In other words, we need the necessary postural tone to be upright and to be fluidly stable in our uprightness, even when we’re doing all sorts of complex manoeuvres.
For quite a long time, science has rather neglected the study of how postural tone is controlled. This was partly because early, simplistic ideas (based on stretch reflexes) were left unchallenged. Also, postural tone is quite hard to measure – largely because it is subtle and ongoing, compared with the muscle activity required for movement/actions. It’s like trying to listen to the background noise while there’s lots going on around you. Another reason that postural muscle tone is difficult to measure is that it is distributed widely and dynamically (i.e. adaptively) across the whole person. Although the biggest contribution to postural support comes from the muscles that lie deep within us – such as those that run along the length of the spine – it’s important to recognise that we are able to stabilise (support) ourselves through bringing in many different configurations of muscle contributions from throughout our whole system. Furthermore, our postural tone will be constantly adapting in a way that is appropriate to whatever we happen to be doing at the time. This complexity means that it can be hard to see the wood for the trees, in trying to understand how it all works!
One of the questions that the publication by Tim Cacciatore and colleagues ask is ‘what can science learn about postural tone from the knowledge that has been developed experientially from integrative, somatic practices such as the Alexander Technique, T’ai Chi and Feldenkrais?’
Here are some of the key points from the publication:
- The degree to which we are able to coordinate our postural tone is of great practical importance for our performance (at work, at home etc), and it’s also important in terms of the potential for developing and resolving chronic pain conditions such as back and neck pain.
- In attempting to improve either pain or performance, conventional approaches tend to focus on muscle activity in specific areas. For example, they may aim to strengthen or stretch certain muscles. Or, they may mostly aim for ‘relaxation’; or for directly attempting to attain a ‘certain desired posture’. In doing so, these approaches ignore our inherent complexity and how we need to regulate our system as a whole, and recognising that this will happen through multiple appropriate pathways.
- In contrast, certain integrative, somatic practices – Alexander Technique, T’ai Chi and Feldenkrais – have been shown to act more holistically to improve muscle tone throughout the whole person. To date, most of the research has focused on the Alexander Technique, and training in this method has been shown to lead to increased adaptability of postural tone, improved movement coordination, and long-term improvement in both back and neck pain.
- Our brain makes a centrally important contribution to regulating postural tone, and this happens via complex pathways that are mostly different to those involved in controlling voluntary action. This is relevant from an Alexander perspective, because we can learn how to use our attention and intention to positively influence our postural tone (as well as our movements, emotional reactions etc). Hand-in-hand with this central regulation from the brain ‘top down’, tone can also be influenced from the ‘bottom up’ i.e. through sensory pathways – this is where, for example, the hands-on work from an Alexander teacher can be beneficial, with change facilitated by the sensory experience. And, as we progress with our individual Alexander journies, we become increasingly adept at refining our Alexander thinking skills (‘top down’) and enhancing our sensory awareness (‘bottom up’), and so gradually become more independent of our Alexander teacher.
- Postural tone is adaptable moment by moment, in order to have the appropriate amount of tone according to what we going to be doing. In addition, postural tone adapts over a long period of time and this can be seen in postural habits (for example, permanently raised shoulders). These longer-term changes can also reduce the capacity to adapt in the moment. Again, this is relevant from an Alexander perspective since we know from research that training in the Alexander Technique increases the adaptability of postural tone.
- Altered postural muscle tone has been observed in many chronic musculoskeletal pain conditions. Individual patterns vary, but often pain is associated with deeper muscles becoming less active and more superficial muscles, more active. Pain is multi-faceted but re-normalising muscle tone is likely to be beneficial. Integrative practices such as the Alexander Technique provide a way to positively influence muscle tone.
- The work by Tim Cacciatore and colleagues appears to provide a scientific framework for some of the underlying principles of the Alexander Technique (all of which were arrived at empirically through experimentation). But this is a starting point rather than a destination and further research is needed to develop a more complete picture of how humans are best able to support themselves against gravity and do all the activities they desire. Perhaps we now have a clearer explanation for some of the diverse observed benefits of learning the Alexander Technique?
Reference
[1] Cacciatore TW, Anderson DI, Cohen RG. Central mechanisms of muscle tone regulation: implications for pain and performance. Frontiers in Neuroscience 2024; 18: https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2024.1511783
You can also hear Tim talk about this publication on Alexander Studies Online.