The Natural Spring:
Fascial adaptation under dynamic change


Most Pilates practitioners know that if they do their exercises correctly and diligently they will get the reward of a strong and pain-free body, able to perform well deep into old age. But the key to this success still requires commitment to regular practice. This begs the question:  Can one recover from the injury and not need the exercises to maintain the achievement? If the exercises were not needed for normal functioning prior to injury, why are they still needed to maintain health after recovery?

My short answer to this question lies in understanding what is injured and what is recovered. Injury not only damages muscle fibers and tears fascia, it also disrupts a myriad of subtle details of neuromuscular synchronization, which not only involve wholeness of tissues, but also a very specific physical property -- elastic deformation. Slight changes in length, weight, tissue thickness, or different layout and fiber distribution will drastically affect the natural frequency of a biomechanical unit and hence the coordination and timing needed to achieve harmonic resonance within a group of biomechanical units in movement.


The complexity of coordinating such movement is far beyond the scope of this article, but suffice to say that by simply changing the tone of a muscle we change its natural frequency, further complicating the task of synchronizing forces within the body. Some of you may ask why would you possibly care to achieve such a high level of coordination, and is it even possible, and what does it have to do with recovering from injuries?

In order to answer this question I will need to bring you along with me on my nearly thirty year journey to understanding subtleties of biomechanical optimization and controlled tissue regeneration.

Let me share with you a puzzle. Twenty-two years ago I met a man with chronic pain and weakness in his neck. Despite numerous consultations and doctor visits, the medical community was stumped as to diagnosing or resolving his pain. The only suspected cause was a whiplash accident from long ago.

Attracted by this mystery, I was eager to explore his condition, body, and range of motion. When I met him, his neck was constrained by pain, and he had to use an enormous amount of conscious effort to hold up his head. While he was on my table, I detected a very peculiar quality in his neck: even though he had good control of relaxation and the muscles were well developed, I could feel an unnatural softness; the tissue seemed to be missing a kind of vibrancy.

The muscles of the neck are intricately positioned to balance, support, and manipulate the head. Whiplash is the effect of the head snapping quickly from one extreme to another. This tremendous impact shocks the muscles, often resulting in spasms, micro-injuries, and limited mobility. So why is it that whiplash continues to be associated with chronic pain? I felt that the answer must be related not simply to exercising the muscles or coaxing them to relax. What was I missing? What was the medical community missing?

Based on my instincts, I supposed that this missing vibrancy was the quality of elasticity associated with his body's fascia. As I was feeling his neck and trying to figure out how to replicate the same sensation in my own body in order to understand the feeling that was so strange about his energy, I recalled the practice of doing pull-ups as a child. When quite young, I taught myself to easily do ten or fifteen pull ups with practically no effort, though my gym teacher chastised my technique. Yet once he corrected my form, I found I could barely do three or four pull-ups in sequence.

The "wrongness" of my technique was that I was relying on the elasticity in my tendons to bounce from a hanging position to a pull-up position. At that time, I had begun to recognize that the movements of more gifted athletes included a kind of cocking and hammer action, as if something within their body was being thrown. Their coordination was not simply continuously controlled as with the "proper" pull-up technique touted by my physical education teacher; instead their coordination seemed more sloppy yet dynamic, intuitive yet efficient.

This early experience started me on a lifelong search for body optimization through looseness, bounciness, and freedom. Over the course of this journey I have moved away from the view of the human body as a machine driven by engines and gears, instead forming a new image of the body functioning as bundles of rubber bands, springs, pulleys, and floating pivots (fig 1), optimized through dynamic movement for harmonic resonance. 

Figure 1


Today I have the following understanding: the body adapts fully to the conditions with which it is presented, meaning training dynamic conditions are preferable to static conditions. Dynamic conditions train and rehabilitate fascia which is critical to the full recovery from the chronic pain associated with whiplash. This understanding greatly affected my process in attending to the man with the neck injury as well as others who have struggled with chronic pain resulting from fascial damage.

Modern rehabilitation practice currently relies enormously on the use of weight, reps, trajectory of movement and resistance in pounds. The goal and focus being to build up muscle strength through linear resistance of force similar to the traditional Magonel catapult (fig 2). Yet we do not use our joints like simple levers. If this were the case, our force generation and absorption would be much lower.


  Figure 2

Now, think of a slingshot. How is it that a slingshot can throw a stone farther than one thrown from a spoon with a handle that is the same length as the rubber band of the sling? The essence of the slingshot is the rubber band’s quality of elastic deformation. The rubber stretches with the swinging force or tension, loading this force into its form. When released, it rebounds to its original shape, creating a spring action. This slingshot action is the major differentiation between the Magonel catapult and the Ballista catapult which incorporates a winching crossbow as the major method of producing force (fig 3). The Ballista was more effective at achieving distance with its “throwing” slingshot mechanism, but did not compare to the power produced by the Magonel.

    Figure 3

Misuse of the body and limitations of modern rehab are to either treat the natural catapults of our body (tendons and fascia) as if the rubber band is a rope, not accounting for either elastic or plastic deformation, or by simply training the levers of our body by lifting weights to increase muscle tone. In nature the living body constantly experiences dynamic load consisting of changing mass and acceleration. If the body is trained under steady load then it will remain unprepared for dynamically changing accelerations present in nature.

When I envision the body I acknowledge that the complexity of our joints use the advantages of both mechanisms. What happens when a catapult and a slingshot are married? A highly effective and unique trebuchet is born, designed for maximizing both force and distance (fig 4).

   Figure 4

The rope of the traditional trebuchet is replaced by a rubber band offering the ultimate tool for acceleration and deceleration. In this same way our fascia and tendons deserve to be considered when training. It is not just about the weight, it is about creating swings and rebounds within movements, training the elasticity in order to achieve maximum effectiveness and health.

The legs of a grasshopper or the tongue of the giant palm salamander are excellent examples of how this trebuchet mechanism functions in nature. The palm salamander can hurl its tongue more than half its body length: 50 times faster than the average eye blink. Despite its comparative smallness, the muscle of this tongue produces the most instantaneous power known in the animal kingdom.

In the case of both the grasshopper and the salamander, the movement shoots out much faster than could be achieved by muscle contraction alone. When scientists deconstructed the similar mechanism in a toad tongue, they discovered three components: a motor to generate energy, a spring to store the energy, and a latch to control the timing of unloading the spring. These are the same components as the trebuchet. It is my view that this mechanism is built into every single muscle attachment of the human body, optimizing the application of fascial elasticity for each moment.

Applying these principles to the man with injured neck fascia, it became apparent that the best way to address his pain was to facilitate dynamic conditions. Given my understanding of principles of fascial regeneration, I began to train his neck in the way that I once trained myself to do pull-ups. We started to engage his muscles, tendons, and surrounding fascia simultaneously using elastic spring-like actions. My goal was to teach his tendons and muscles to bounce. Gradually, this quality began to amplify and naturally manifest itself. He found that he no longer needed to continuously hold up his head as the impulses echoed up and down his spine. As the need for the conscious effort decreased, the static contractions eased off, and the pain dissipated shortly thereafter.

My method is based on simulating complex conditions precisely at the injury site creating subtle but full replication of neurological and neuromuscular timings through neuromechanical signaling that trigger regeneration. I achieve this process by forming a symbiotic relationship between my tissues and the damaged tissue.

Forming dynamically changing conditions congruent with the natural qualities of living tissues and their adaptive mechanisms continues to play a large role in my work. For most of my life I have been focused on studying and investigating methods of visionaries such as Ida Rolf and Moshe Feldenkrais, as well as Daoist, Yogic, and martial practices. My search was to identify and cross-reference the principle of tissue adaptation which I believe is at the heart of what makes those arts effective.

I have also recognized that subtle aspects of Pilates techniques and equipment was ideally suited to accommodate for the type of dynamic conditions needed for the adaptation of fascial tissue. The principles and qualities of dynamic elasticity, which I utilized in my work, were actualized in the springs and floating pivots of the Joseph Pilates’s equipment.

Though the equipment is not always approached by practitioners with dynamic conditioning specifically in mind, I have found myself favoring Pilates equipment to facilitate physical therapy, given both its natural synchronization with the body and its ease of modular use. The trajectories and accelerations built into the capability of this equipment are incredibly matched to the elasticity of the body's fascia. The equipment promotes elastic movement, offering users the experience of feeling free, happy, and coordinated.

   Figure 5

Pilates movement is also designed for dynamic optimization. After great study and deep reflection I have seen that though most movements appear linear, the uniqueness of Pilates exercise is that each movement is straight in such a way that the body internally performs a curve. This design allows practitioners to discover the subtle circularity of articulations within soft tissue and joints.

I realize that this may go against the grain of some Pilates practitioners, but I would encourage readers to temporarily put aside modern educational materials and instead intently study footage of Joseph Pilates performing or guiding exercises. By carefully observing the transitional moments in the movements you will recognize a refined spring-like action, indicative of his elasticity training. Despite Joseph Pilates seeming slowness and evenness of coordination, you will be able to see him training elasticity and resilience. The power gained through his method is based on body unification not body isolation/segmentation.

Once the body’s natural propensity for adaptation in dynamic conditions is recognized, whether approaching a case of whiplash, exploring the Pilates exercises, or by innovating your own methods, I encourage you to look deeper into the body’s fascial mechanisms in every movement. Pay special attention to directional changes, allowing the body to experience inertia, and its acceleration and deceleration as it interacts joyfully with its natural environment.

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A thorough analysis of The Hundred with a full discussion of transitional impulses, optimization and pros and cons of training for muscle size and tone requires a dedicated article. In order to explore the subtleties of employing The Hundred as we address optimizing functionality through adaptation and synchronization for harmonic resonance between the activity of the extrafusal muscle fibers, muscle spindle accelerations, and tendon elongation and recoil, you need to gain some practical experience in identifying subtle sensations in the body within different activation cycles.

Below is the step-by-step outline of the procedure that I developed for this purpose. In order to become familiar with this process I recommend that you begin by exploring The Hundred from the point of view of elasticity and harnessing the recoil rather than the more common instruction of disallowing inertia.

Step 1. Discover the resistance free trajectory.

Step 2. Discover peak load points, which we will identify as directional change positions.

Step 3. Begin to harness the elasticity of recoil, learning to match the natural accelerations and
decelerations of tissue under load.

Step 4. Learn to stagger the impulses generated by the muscle contractions in between the elongation and recoil of not only the specific tendons, but of all associated fascia.

Step 5. Learn to ride the resonance much like you would a swing once it has reached the full desired range, by only adding the minimally necessary impulses at the points of directional change.

Following this general outline will help you find, develop, and eventually sustain elasticity in your day to day movement.

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Author: Dmitry Grinberg