Implications for Thinking and Decision-Making in Practice
By Greg Mack
Medical and Exercise practitioners working with the human body are diverse in both training and perspective. Each has a particular set of role responsibilities in addressing the expressed needs of a client or patient. Those responsibilities are executed with a methodology and set of tools used to assess the client’s system and to work to improve it in some way. The methods and strategies chosen are based on a philosophical perspective of what the human body is and how it works. That perspective is termed Body-View. Body-view is a philosophical construct that each practitioner holds within their minds – consciously or subconsciously – which informs their interpretation and understanding of each client’s circumstance.
Body-view (n.) –
An overarching perspective through which, and from which, an individual interprets, understands, and interacts with the human body. Greg Mack, 2010
It is a subset of a Worldview (n.) –
a comprehensive conception or image of the universe and of humanity’s relation to it. Dictionary.com 2017
The suffix “-ism” is used to denote that the root word now reflects an overarching ideology and perspective through which empirical experience is filtered. When an individual presents themselves to a practitioner and subjectively reports their somatic experience, (typically sensations that they don’t like or want) and outlines a health history, that practitioner, knowingly or unknowingly, employs their Body-View to interpret, understand, and execute strategies and tactics to address the individual’s issues.
The Certified Muscle System Specialists at Physicians Fitness have a totally unique and powerful Philosophy of Body that informs their work process.
The human body is an open, finite, thermodynamic system, made up of a concrescent, heterogenous material continuum, with an intrinsic network control system, excited to life by spiritual force, that primarily uses inhibition and negative feedback loops to govern its configurational capabilities to maintain homeostasis and allostasis as a bio-motor system.
Bio-Motor Configurationalism
The philosophical body-view positing that any observed bio-motor control output, under kinetic conditions, is the expression of the living human system’s complete four-dimensional configuration consisting of its neurological, chemical, geometrical, and material constituents, at the moment of that produced output. Any specifically observed bio-motor control function, under specified conditions, at any point in time, is a completely unique configuration of all its elements (information). As conditions are dynamic, so is the system configuration moment to moment. Even an observed motor output event that appears be the exact geometrical duplicate of a previous output event is the result of a new and unique system configuration – a unique combination of its individual component behavior, most of which is unobservable that aggregates to an observed bio-motor event. This speaks to the concept of bio-motor variability in that the more combinations of configurations possible – the degrees of freedom within the structural integrity of the materials – the more robust and capable the system is for producing unique motor outputs to meet dynamic conditions. This encapsulates the concept of neurological and material plasticity: the system’s ability to adopt new configurations, and possibly prune configurations, via new connectivity.
Here is some detail about this Body View:
Thermodynamic System
Thermodynamics is the study of energy, and energy is the ability to cause change – actually or potentially. Energy is an intrinsic property of mass (aka rest mass) as stated in E=mc2. Massless particles like photons and gluons only have energy because they have momentum. It is broadly interpreted to include all aspects of energy, and energy transformations, including power generation, temperature, surface forces, electrostatic, mechanical and chemical gradients, and the relationships among the properties of matter. (Energy is related to force in that force is simply the measurement of that change).
Thermodynamics addresses the question of how materials/systems change in response to conditions and/or forces acting upon them. The change, and how, and in what direction, the change occurs, are represented by the structure-property-processing-performance tetrahedron.
A system is defined as a quantity of matter or a region of space chosen for study or the group of materials/particles with definable boundaries that exhibit thermodynamic properties. The group of materials/particles are interdependent, interacting, and interconnected. The mass or region outside of the system is called the surroundings; the real or imaginary surface that separates the system from its surroundings is called the boundary.
There are 4 types of thermodynamic systems – here are two:
A closed thermodynamic system has a fixed amount of mass and no mass can cross its boundary. Piston filled with a gas with a moving boundary subject to temperature increase.
An open thermodynamic system is one that is without a fixed amount of mass and mass can cross its boundary. The human body is an open system as the mass of food and water can cross its boundaries and enter the system.
Thermodynamics deals with equilibrium states (state of balance = no mass/energy exchange on average = no change). A system in equilibrium experiences no changes when it is isolated from its surroundings and does not change with time. A system in disequilibrium has one or more of its dynamic properties exerting a force causing a change with time. (i.e., Pressure, temperature, electrical differences) The state of a system is a unique set of values for the variables that describe a material on the macroscopic level. Stable states therefore mean no active change even when perturbed. Unstable states are defined as those actively tending toward a new equilibrium state, or when perturbed, there will be movement to a new state.
A critical concept is revealed in the definition of total system energy. The internal energy of a system/material consists of its potential, kinetic, and internal energies. Internal here is being defined as the energy stored in the basic building blocks of the material itself – the atoms. Entropy is the fundamental notion that can be considered as an index or counter of the number of degrees of freedom (micro states) a material/system can store internal energy.
The human body is a material system that has at any moment a specific amount of total energy and is regulating itself for the minimum expenditure of energy under all conditions, even as it makes a large excursion away from its mean homeostatic window. Any change that a system undergoes from one equilibrium state to another is called a process, and the series of states that a system passes during a process is called the path. (In Exercise = the Session).
Finding the balance between the systems total energy and its entropy is ultimately what defines an equilibrium state. Exercise process adds mechanical/kinetic energy to the system as a form of perturbation in order to change it to a new energy state. How we control this energetic input and monitor system change is crucial to improving client’s health and function.
The Control System
Any system has some fundamental aspects/components that serve to regulate its actions and interactions with the environment. The human body’s control system is held to the Prime Directive of survival, as a function of its system mobility that is highly dependent on its joint system. Mobility is the body’s key to survival as it must be able to seek and gather food/energy to sustain its existence. The maintenance of the inertial properties of the system to enable motion is of highest priority. Brain and heart function serve the mobility directive. Stability establishes mobility as a function of structural design constraints.
The human body is an excited system (life) requiring inhibition as its primary regulatory feature within the nervous sub-system. The human neurological system is certainly dynamic, and an actively learning construct, processing chemical-electrical information. This system is constituted by a fully integrated structure. The structure is an interdependent set of anatomic communication hubs, links, and a streaming connectivity, that simultaneously senses and controls physical behaviors in a four dimensional environment. The system operates in such a way that moment-to-moment the entire state of the system reflects a specific and unique configuration of information flowing within it. The ability of the system is reflected in its physical motor behavior at the gross observable level and is capable of altering its anatomical structural connectivity in response to changing conditions. This is necessary variability in the structure-function relationship.
The moment-to-moment configuration of the information under changing conditions may reflect a limit or potential in the transfer and management of communication within its connectivity. These limits and potentials may be displayed as a deficit, or gain, in specific physical motor behaviors. Due to the integrated nature of the information, local behaviors reflect total system processing and state aggregate behavior. Local motor behavior deficits or gains (behaviors), however, observed and measured, could exist because of non-local influences within the total configuration. Non-local influences can be manipulated to change the total system configuration in such a way that a locally observed motor behavior deficit or gain – limits and potentials – could be changed. This is learning.
Aka plasticity.
In other words – what worked a second ago to influence the system may not work the next second depending on the changing conditions, a new chemical-electrical-mechanical configuration, and the existing limitations and potentials in the communication processing. What an observer observes in the system at any moment may or may not be observed in the next moment.
A variety of system communication configurations can create and support a specific gross observable motor behavior. When an intended motor behavior cannot be created and observed then a system configuration could not be generated to support that effort. A nervous system with multiple configuration capabilities that can generate a unique motor output is a robust one – the ability to generate a wide array of configurations – is an important contribution to the systems variability.
Variability is a hallmark of a dynamic and healthy system. It is primarily a negative feedback control model with self-regulating properties, although inherently imperfect. It is a system subject to free will by its operator over the macro systems of human movement, although the micro systems are managed by “hard-wired” reflex arc controls, which function outside of the operator’s volitional control. Complex arrays of peripheral receptors within the system signal the free will and reflex arc centers on appropriate behaviors in action, and reaction, to environmental stimulus and volitional commands.
The system has inherent constraints (i.e., genetic, structure) and is not perfect. These imperfections in the system, especially those found in the non-volitional reflex arc configurations and cellular operations, combined with its need for continual energetic input, make it susceptible to interruptions in function, which requires external support, interventions, and maintenance.
Material Continuum
The human body is a living, concrescent entity and its various materials are subject to the Laws of Newtonian Mechanics and Thermodynamics. Matter is made up at atoms (micro level) that are widely spaced in the gas phase. However, viewing a living, concrescent system at the macro level as a
continuous homogenous material with no holes, spaces, or gaps is called a continuum. The classical concept of a continuum is derived from mathematics. We say that the real number system is a continuum. Between any two distinct real numbers there is another distinct real number, and therefore an infinite number of real numbers.
The human biological material continuum of heterogenous tissues is made up of individual cells. Cells possess unique tolerances to various stressors and react to the absence and presence of that stressor. This reaction occurs across a continuum from zero stress to supra-maximal stress. Both these extremes represent a significant impact on the cellular/material response, either promoting its normal function, altering its function, or leading to cell death.
As such, IAW the laws of mechanics and thermodynamics, force/energy (the stressor) acting on the tissue continuum can alter the nature of the materials. Materials undergo deformations when exposed to force/energy (aka stress and/or stimulus) that may temporarily, or permanently, change their properties/shape. These deformations, termed strain and sprain, are categorized as either elastic or plastic to the current state of the material.
Extending this concept to matter we speak of a material continuum as the continuous distribution of matter in a defined space (boundaries). It has the properties of volume, density, and/or weight. A material continuum is a material for which the densities of mass, momentum, and energy exist in the mathematical sense. A biologic material continuum has the unique capabilities of adjusting its properties to existing internal and external conditions to minimize energy loses and protects its ability to be mobile. The Human Body is a concrescent, heterogenous, biological material continuum.
Spiritual Nature
The spiritual component feeds powerfully into the interpretation of the nature of the client and their existence in space and time. The practitioner’s, and the client’s, beliefs regarding the spiritual realm, and their relationship to it, can be profoundly influential on the professional relationship and the interpretation of observations. The spiritual aspect of our nature influences behavior and decision making, thus the free-will/volitional aspects of mobility and the Prime Directive are affected. The Human Body is of a spiritual nature. It represents the inherent “Life” or excitation of biological tissues.
Additionally our Certified Muscle System Specialists know your body is a concrescent system – not assembled – and this has profound implications for how we think and make decisions:
Concrescent System versus Assembled System
Concrescence (n.) Biology.
A growing together, as of tissue or embryonic parts; coalescence. (dictionary.com)
Assemble (v.)
To fit together the parts of. (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/assemble)
A living concrescent system grows and evolves in such a way that the complexity of any aspect of its material and information generation and processing system is not complete before the completion of another aspect. The agent is constituted by millions of physically interconnected cellular structures that provide fitness of function even if some of those structures are disrupted. The complexity of growth and function proceeds generally in tandem (in parallel). This follows the Principle of Ecological Balance, which states that complexity levels of sensory, motor, and neural subsystems should match and be calibrated to each other spatiotemporally. This provides a high degree of interconnectedness, interaction, and interdependence that creates exaptation – the exploitation of its existing structures for a new function or behavioral expression.
Concrescence contributes to emergent behavior that is flexible and highly adaptive where the system can function in environments it has never experienced before. Living tissue can self-assemble and heal. The downside of a concrescent system is that the intimate and overlapping transition zones between many of the materials tissues create a situation where damage to a particular tissue will directly impact the immediately adjacent tissues. It is difficult to repair or replace the damaged material without affecting the adjacent-connected tissues.
Any practitioner in medicine and fitness has a Philosophy of Body whether they realize it or not. Most do not have a well thought out Body View that is the foundation for informing and guiding their work process. A well thought out Philosophy of Body might be the most important thing any practitioner in the health and fitness space possesses.
Ask your medical or fitness practitioner what their body view is.
What is yours?
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