STRUCTURAL-BIOMECHANICAL CARICATURES
A purely biomechanical rendering of the human musculoskeletal system and posture is misleading and deficient, it neglects many of the non-Newtonian features of living tissues.
Plumb-line gravitational ideals and grid projections, imposed onto the body, unfortunately inform a lot of therapeutic models and rationales. These measures of imperfection are sometimes used to scare patients into lengthy and clinically unjustified maintenance programs. We often hear the following: my therapist told me I have a ‘lordosis/scoliosis/leg length difference/etc and that it will require ongoing treatment to avert ‘x’ (insert the specific disability or musculoskeletal catastrophe).
Structural caricatures and biomechanical boogie men are attractive because of they offer deterministic explanations of pain and dysfunction. Unfortunately deterministic models neglect a lot of the juicy adaptive details and the complexity of the body. These adaptive details explain why structural faults exist mostly without correlation to either musculoskeletal symptoms or long term outcomes and pathology.
Acute trauma aside, the organism is adept at biomechanical homeostasis – adaptation produces subtle changes and symptoms rather than sudden calamitous musculoskeletal demise.
FEATURED IMAGE:
Leonardo Da Vinci. De Humani Corpora Fabrica (1543).