Elasticity, Length & Strength of The Human Body
Part I to experiencing the body as a core foundation for well being
The majority of humans are born with a perfect body. Their posture, their movement, their breathing, it all emerges into alignment and regenerates back into alignment after imbalances. The natural order of the organism is beautiful, brilliant and a subtle kind of miracle. Then, life happens. We start holding onto visceral sensations like tension and anger internally. We join strength-building classes and lift heavier and heavier weights, even if we aren’t in need of any particular kind of physical strength in our daily lives. We experience injuries, breaks, scars and other kinds of damage to our bodies. We fall, we push harder, we win big, we lose traumatically, and all these events store up inside the imprint that is our body and mind.
By early adulthood, most humans tend to be going through life with unconscious imbalances in their body. Parts of the body become more rigid and breathing tends to speed up, or worse, occur increasingly through the mouth. The person’s neuromuscular system undergoes a remodelling, which involves muscles, fascia and the central and peripheral nervous systems. Even if they are aware of some of them, they conclude that these imbalances are irrelevant or unfixable. Often, they even try to do more strength training, further exacerbating the imbalances. And above all else, they stop listening to their bodies, perhaps lightly at first, yet the ignorance grows more pronounced as time wears on.
However, I’m here to try to prod you in the other direction:
What's going on in your body is a big deal (even if you’re still young or not in major pain now);
Being aware of your body and its sensations and messages is one of the most important traits you can maintain and build upon; and
If imbalances can’t be fixed entirely, they can be significantly ameliorated.
Keep in mind, not all issues with the body are bad. In fact, in certain cases, temporary discomfort and light pain can be healthy for the development of the body and mind. However, when that discomfort and pain is directed toward an already occurring imbalance, or when it starts to become systemic and unconsciously embedded into the structure of our body, our approach contends that we must proactively intervene. This is how we foster elasticity, length and strength in our body and mind.
Elasticity, Length and Strength
So, what do we mean by elasticity? Elasticity is the dance between tension and release — the living quality that keeps you both grounded and fluid. It is the capability of the body to undergo stress and absorb hits, while remaining whole, and it mirrors your nervous system’s adaptability: the more elastic your body, the more you can handle stress and recover gracefully. Elasticity is nourished through movement diversity, which remind tissues how to glide and breathe.
And length? Length is about creating space within the body. When you lengthen through the spine, limbs, and fascia, you create internal decompression, allowing blood, lymph, and energy to flow more freely. Length encourages postural expansion, which in turn opens breathing capacity, balances the nervous system, and improves circulation.
Finally, strength is not about bulk or rigidity. Strength emerges when muscles, joints, and fascia cooperate rather than compete. A strong core, balanced hips, and stable shoulders create the foundation for efficient movement. It is integrity in motion — the ability to support your structure while staying fluid and aware, rather than rock-like and numb.
Our purpose is to foster a body that is adaptable, contains space, and cooperates in an integrated manner. To do this, we want to weave a movement plan into our rituals that motivates a body in harmony with the daily needs of our unique life. This is the body we were born with, and it is the body we deserve to spend our lives in.
Bones, Muscles, Fascia, and The Nervous System
Most people are taught in their early years about the basic building blocks of the human body. This is an arm, that is a leg. As time goes on, they tend to take their body for granted, except as it relates to the utility of daily life. It’s just there as I go about my day. Gym goers may notice that repeatedly lifting a weight with the arm tends to make it feel stronger over time. Yoga practitioners may feel that this pose makes that part of the body more fluid. Athletes are often told to stretch before practice to prevent injury. This is all well and good, except that such a detached and reductionist approach begets a lifelong disconnect from the essence of what our body actually is.
The human body is a complex system of interconnected structures, with bones, muscles, fascia and the nervous system working together to provide movement, support, protection and life.
Bones
Ok, let’s start by taking a look into the individual components of the body, starting with bones.
Bones support and shape the body plan and protect vital organs. They serve as attachment points for muscles and are connected by joints which facilitate movement. In this way they are very much the plan, or architectural scaffolding, for the human body - we don’t have much say about how we’re built, however we can be proactive in keeping it in good order with helpful daily habits and periodic renovations. And bones are indeed living tissue that remodels and regenerates in response to pressure and energy flow. They produce blood cells in the bone marrow and store minerals (like calcium and phosphorus). When you move, breathe, and live as if your bones are alive, not objects, they respond. We’ll talk more about what that means more specifically for bone health later on in this series on the body.
Muscles
Muscles function by contracting and relaxing to produce movement, maintain posture, and support bodily functions. It is important to understand that muscles work in pairs (agonist & antagonist) to allow controlled movement, and that movement within the body is relative: the contraction of one muscle, impacts many others simultaneously. For example, when you reach with your hand, your whole back body participates to stabilise and support that movement. Muscles function in chains and spirals, not in isolation — movement is a whole-body conversation (this is why localised strength training can lead to some disastrous compensatory knock-on effects). And like bones, muscles are a form of tissue, which is malleable and regenerative, however one which can weaken with lack of use and without proper maintenance over time. Muscles also store emotional patterns, and communicate with the nervous system. Muscle tone — whether tight, weak, or supple — is not purely physical. It’s a neurological and emotional expression. Whether you are physically or psychologically safe and relaxed, or under threat and stress, will be reflected in the tension and fluidity of your muscle tone (traditionally, this used to arise from a physical stimulus, however in today’s modern sedentary life, it is primarily psychological).
Fascia
The third component essential to the everyday well functioning of the human body, and often overlooked until recent years, is fascia. Fascia is a continuous connective tissue of fabric that holds our trillions of wet, greasy cells together and forms a singular and fibrous net which can be found almost everywhere in the body (only in the open lumens of the respiratory and digestive tracts is fascia absent). Among its many functions, it allows for smooth movement by reducing friction between muscles, and when unhealthy (due to lack of movement, dehydration, or stress), fascia becomes tight and restricted, causing felt pain and stiffness. Most injuries occur because of issues in the fascial net, rather than in the muscles or bones. Fascia are a sensory organ containing an extraordinary density of sensory nerve endings — more than muscles by far. It’s packed with proprioceptors, mechanoreceptors, and interoceptors — meaning it’s a major sensory organ that helps you feel your body from the inside. Your body awareness primarily happens in the fascia. Moreover, the interrelated nature of the body has muscles creating tension, bones bearing compression, and fascia distributing force throughout the whole system. This means that structure emerges from relationship, not rigid stacking, and strength is distributed, rather than localised.
So, when considering bones, muscles and fascia together in the context of the whole human body, what is apparent above all else is that our bodies are not simply reductionist pieces of muscles working individually depending on the function we need at any given moment. Whatever else muscles may be doing individually, they also affect the functionally integrated body-wide system within a vast fascial webbing. This is such an important point, that I will harp on it again in a different way. When it comes to recovery and healing, issues in one area of the body can be linked to a totally different area far removed from the one presenting symptoms. And for performance enhancing strategies, building isolated points of strength will invariably lead to imbalances in other points of the body. These two relativistic principles are worthwhile to keep in mind as you engage in either rehabilitative practice or performance training.
We’re almost there, but that’s not quite the whole story. To go further into the practical understanding of our body, we also need to incorporate the neural circuits running through every corner and nook of the body.
Nervous System
When interacting with the human body, it is impossible to contact and utilise muscle tissue without also contacting and affecting the accompanying fascial tissues and the function and perfusion in neural, vascular and epithelial cells and tissues as well. The interwoven network between muscles, fascia and the nervous system is referred to as the neuro-myo-fascial system. Muscles require innervation to function—and even just to maintain muscle tone, avoiding atrophy. In the neuro-myo-fascial system, nerves from the central nervous system and the peripheral nervous system are linked and work together with muscles and surrounding fascial connective tissues. This system is essential to movements of the body, the control of posture, and breathing. The brain does not sit “above” the body; it is shaped by the body, and the body by the brain. Sensory feedback from movement, posture, organs, and fascia constantly influences brain activity. The “mind” is distributed throughout the body, with nerve plexuses in the heart, gut, and fascia that think and feel in their own ways.
Understanding the neuro-myo-fascial system opens the door for understanding the link between our state of mind and the state of our body. The way we routinely feel, our emotions, our thoughts, are messages passed on through the body, and, occasionally stored there, particularly if they are accompanied with a meaningful nervous system response. The classic “startled response” postural imbalance is an example of this. Individuals experience flight or fight nervous responses, the way animals would do in front of physical danger, yet in these contemporary cases it tends to be from psychological threats like relationships or work. The body coils inward, in an unconscious attempt at protecting our delicate parts - the neck, genitalia, and heart. However, instead of letting this physiological response go, in seconds or minutes, the way ancients would, the nervous system holds onto it for days, years, even decades. This postural imbalance is indicative of an individual in a near-perpetual state of threat. If identified and acknowledged, the psychological state can subsequently be reversed through corrective bodywork on the posture, a reverse physiological-to-psychological process, yet it is one which takes time and commitment on the part of the individual.
Integrating Thoughts
The human body is more than a machine composed of individual parts. It is akin to a field composed of relationships. And bones are not just things inside the body; they are the way space takes form around the body, its architectural scaffolding. They carry compressive forces, while the fascia and muscles manage tensile (stretching) forces. When you stand or sit in balance — with your bones stacked along the line of gravity — something subtle happens: the body feels lighter, not heavier; the breath deepens; the nervous system calms; and there’s a sense of lift from within. This is space as felt experience — not external volume, but internal openness. With this felt and real sense of space, the muscles can begin to ease into cooperation, the fascia tends to rehydrate and distribute tension evenly allowing for appropriate adaptability, and the nervous system calms, sensing safety in balance. This is elasticity, length, and strength at work in the bones, muscles, fascia and nervous system of the human body.
Creating space in the body — Length opens up the door for a regulated nervous system, and energy to flow seamlessly.
Fostering adaptivity — Elasticity allows for a resilience to external shocks, and an ability to remain whole as we are.
Inviting cooperation throughout — Strength is not localised, it is distributed.
This is living in harmony with our body, as it was intended. And this becomes the purpose of our movement patterns. Truly, It is crucial that we move, daily. Everything in the body and mind comes to function inadequately if we remain sedentary for too long. Movement is life.
A Footnote on Aging
What happens as we age? Well, for one, a gradual loss of muscle mass begins to be detected in most humans in the third decade of life and progressively increases with age. It has been estimated that during aging, there is a 30-50% reduction in the number and 10-40% decrease in the size of skeletal muscle fibres123. There is also a shift toward a slower phenotype of muscle fibres, as aging seems to induce the replacement of fast-twitch with slow-twitch motor units.
It therefore becomes meaningful for us to incorporate a level of strength into any exercise we do. Walking around and doing sun salutations just won’t cut it. We must engage in a push-pull force that actively engages our body. Just remember the relatively principle of muscles: what happens if our muscles and bones atrophy? Weakness or strength in one area of the body, will translate into compensation or weakness in other parts. Thus, move the whole body in an integrated way.
Lexell, J., Taylor, C. C., and Sjöström, M. (1988). What is the cause of the ageing atrophy? Total number, size and proportion of different fiber types studied in whole vastus lateralis muscle from 15- to 83-year-old men. J. Neurol. Sci. 84, 275–294. doi: 10.1016/0022-510x(88)90132-3
Doherty, T. J. (2003). Invited review: aging and sarcopenia. J. Appl. Physiol. 95, 1717–1727. doi: 10.1152/japplphysiol.00347.2003
Lexell, J. (1995). Human aging, muscle mass, and fiber type composition. Gerontol. A. Biol. Sci. Med. Sci. 50, 11–16. doi: 10.1093/gerona/50a.special_issue.11