The body is a balanced system. Imagine this system as a company. For a successful existence, she needs employees – muscles who will work conscientiously and complete tasks in full. But often in the body, as in companies, there are both workaholics dying from the load, and lazy people loitering around the office doing nothing. How to restore balance and get each muscle to perform the optimal amount of work?
Let’s analyze the subordination system: the brain is the leader, the muscles are the performers in the field. There is also the owner of the company – our will, the decision-making center.
Imagine the situation: at some point, due to an incorrect lifestyle or injury, an imbalance occurs in the work of the muscles. A team of overstressed workaholics and a group of sleepy, flabby, useless lazy people are formed.
Workaholics find it difficult to live, so they send “petitions” to the brain – signals that the brain recognizes as pain. The back hurts, the brain is alerted and ready to correct the situation. But the owner of the business, our strong-willed structure, rejects the “petition” for lack of grounds: everyone has a backache, there is no time to be distracted. And refuses to consider the case.
Hidden threat
The brain receives pain signals, but, without receiving help from volitional structures, it begins to adapt to the situation. To make life easier for the muscles, he adjusts the bone structures for them: he changes his posture, bends here and props up there.
The whole system is bent, but the pain does not go away. Then the brain decides on a sneaky guiding move: it turns off the pain syndrome. “Complain all you want, and I will spam your messages,” he seems to be saying. The pain syndrome is blocked on the way to the brain, and the person seems to feel better. The pain breaks through only when the tension rolls over.
Let me give you an example: in my classes there was a person who said that nothing hurts him. My back used to hurt, then it went away. There is only one nuisance: if he drives for a long time, then his left leg is taken away.
Imagine how many signals the brain had to block in order for the problem message to shoot out in such a killer way. If you include all this pain, a person may not endure!
Step forward
Now let’s imagine that a person has done an MRI, saw, say, a hernia in the picture, and the volitional center decided to deal with back pain. Where to begin?
“Let’s relax all the tense muscles, and let’s make the sleeping ones work,” the volitional center gives the order. But the spasmodic muscles are blocked, the brain does not see or hear them, because it has blocked all complaints.
“We are fine,” the brain reports.
“But it looks crooked in the mirror,” you object. “One shoulder is higher than the other, a hump under the neck, the pelvis is turned.”
“As for the visual effects, this is a question for the eyes, but at the level of sensations, everything is fine!” – retorts the brain.
And when you just lie down on the sofa, relax and relieve tension, and then you can’t get up even and healthy, then the person moves on to procedures and gymnastics.
Management decisions
How to sort out the accumulated mess in your own body? You can try to pump something up, strain it, strengthen it, shake it up. Scientific studies have proven that any attempt at tension (strength exercise) most often falls on the shoulders of unfortunate workaholics who are already feeling sick.
Therefore, the modern technology for restoring muscle tone and posture is a tricky management move:
Step 1. Send workaholics on vacation, help overstressed muscles relax. I wrote about how to do this in previous articles: osteopathic procedures, massage and, of course, one of the necessary components is Xinseng gymnastics for the spine.
Step 2. Find a replacement for workaholics. Someone has to work: keep the body upright, move (walk, at least). And lazy people have to wake up, connect to the common cause.
Defeated laziness
If you study with us (through texts or in reality), then you know what excellent results active relaxation gives: the body becomes more mobile, lighter, freer. But there are times when the practice of relaxation goes on as usual, and lazy muscles are not included in full.
Active power loads in this case can return the usual tension, because the structure of the body has not yet fully lined up. Instead, I suggest exercises to actively seek balance. One such ingenious exercise is the asymmetric plank. Let’s master it together.
- Make a plank. To begin with, I highly recommend making it, for example, from the table. Feet close, stance on toes. The palms rest against the surface of the table: the load is small, but for starters – that’s it! Imagine that there is a loop on the top of your head, for which someone very carefully pulls you forward: the neck is long, the shoulders are relaxed. There is a feeling of soft and pleasant stretching of the entire spine.
- Based on this feeling of stretching, ask yourself the question: what else can I relax in this position? Perhaps the muscles of the shoulder girdle? Or buttocks and thighs? Carefully study the body from top to bottom, as if “turning off” unnecessary areas of tension, but maintaining a feeling of stretching.
- Gently shift your body weight onto your right arm and leg. And in this position, find which muscles are needed, and which can be relaxed, “turned off”.
- Now transfer the weight of the body to the left arm and leg, “turn off” the extra muscles.
No need to strive to tear off the limbs from the floor / table, transfer the weight of the body carefully, look for the most confident, relaxed position in the position. Do this exercise every day for 3-4 minutes, if possible, combine it with the practice of relaxation (first gymnastics for the Xinseng spine, then the plank).
When the load is mastered, you can make a plank from the chair. And only then, feeling free and confident, from the floor.
Develop your body, strengthening your health, and then with age it will only become stronger!