Body and Sole - Page 3
A discourse on the practice of wearing orthotic insoles in shoes as a means if remedying poor posture
some activities put greater demand on co-ordination mechanisms
The body co-ordinates as a whole. The exacting degree of individuation needed for fingers to manipulate a dental drill in another person’s mouth is dependent upon the integration and stability of the dentist’s whole body, and especially on his ability to prevent activity in parts not directly engaged in the procedure. He needs to bring his eyes and hands close enough for fine work at a variety of angles, often maintaining a particular posture for some time. His arms and head need to support hands and eyes in a way that ensures that there is no wobbling, no missing the mark. Part of this intricate operation of balance and co-ordination entails preventing his legs from jumping about while this is going on. His breathing needs to continue throughout painstaking detailed work without allowing the movements of his ribcage to throw his fingers off track. This complex of co-ordination, requiring constant miniscule adjustment of the masses and weights of innervated body parts, takes place automatically, outside of his awareness. However, the quality - or character - of this process can be influenced consciously by his paying attention to his manner of use in the situation. Clumsiness is less likely to occur in a person who is neither too tense nor too slack.
co-ordination disadvantage
As a normal baby grows, his nervous system gets better at individuating parts from the whole, better at moving one part at a time, and leaving the parts that are not being used acting minimally in support of the specific movement so that energy is not wasted. At three months when he smiles at you he flaps his arms and kicks his legs at the same time. It's delightful to see. When we see the expression of such wholesome pleasure in a twelve-year-old we recognise at once that there is something different going on. We do not expect a more mature body to have difficulty in keeping some parts still. It means that the person’s mechanisms are not working optimally, they are energy inefficient. For that person co-ordination is a struggle, hard work. He needs help to get the best out of his body.
exercise can be harmful
When instead of sticking a hypodermic in someone’s mouth you decide to go for a game of squash, you are not caring for the other person now but it is still important for you to ensure the safe integration of all the parts of yourself. If every time you thwack the ball you jam your skull down obliquely on your atlanto-occipital joint, you are not doing yourself as much good as the frequently recommended taking of exercise would lead you to believe. There is more to exercising than simply contracting as many muscles as possible as hard as possible. You need to ensure that appropriate muscle groups are being exercised. You need to be well co-ordinated if the game is going to be good for you and not do you harm. You need to know what you are doing.
everyday activitiy can be harmful
A person’s musculature can be so badly organised that each time she rises from a chair she thumps herself in the stomach and in the lumbar spine. Every click on a mouse may simultaneously be a violent attack on the delicate structure of her neck. It makes sense for her to be skilled in using an individuated finger on the end of a well-sprung arm and shoulder, and to be accomplished in leaving her neck out of it. She needs to be able to respond with appropriate strength and mechanical advantage for the economical requirements of an action, and to return from various positions and postures to an easy poise, relaxed and alert, ready for the next action.
When she uses herself inefficiently there is no return to an opened out shape after a specific movement. A milder version of the poor shape she adopted remains after the action is finished. Gradually the normal shape of a person becomes moulded by her habitual patterns of use. If every time she sits down she flexes too much - that is: she tightens herself down in front; drags her cervical spine forward jamming her head back on her neck; her thigh muscles overcontract in taking too much of the responsibility for seeing her safely into the chair; and her knees pull together putting extra strain on her lumbar spine; - then this particular arrangement of body parts that she habitually employs will determine the character of her posture. When it occurs in children we call it "bad posture" because its more obvious features will include flat feet, round or raised shoulders and sway back. In adults it will be associated with a variety of spinal and limb injuries and ailments ranging from neck to lumbar spine, shoulders, knees, elbows, hands, feet and tempero-mandibular joints. Yet we fail to make the connection with her "bad posture" because those shapes we associate with the adult form are normal! Adult bodies look strange to us when the character of their posture gives them an opened out shape. Yet most of us used to have bodies like Roger’s. I hope his father and mother will help him to keep his good use for life.
seeking solutions
Some parents do notice their children have bad posture before the onset of painful knees or random neck spasm. They may be recommended remedial shoe implants. This appears to answer the problem initially, but the habits of use that are cultivated by means of these prosthetics will only supplant one set of damaging postural habits with another.