Have you been taught in school that our body is a giant system of fulcrums and levers? Did you learn these levers operate in a single plane of motion and are responsible for things like extending your arm to throw a dart or flexing your knee to kick a ball?
 
Would you still believe this if I told you this model has been proven wrong on multiple occasions? 
 
Our body is anything but a system of fulcrums and levers.

Just think about it: If every joint on your body could only move through one plane of motion, throwing or hitting a baseball would be impossible. We wouldn’t be able to rotate. The hips need to do a lot more than just flex and extend when we try to throw or swing. They need to be able to abduct, adduct, internally rotate, and externally rotate – all things levers don’t account for.

If we want to explain elite level movement patterns, we have to use a different model. You can learn about this in our latest blog post: “Biotensegrity: What you need to know as a coach.”
 
Below is an excerpt from the post:
 
“Humans do not execute tasks as a system of fulcrums and levers that operate in a single plane of motion. They are biological systems that move omnidirectionally and are capable of sustaining loads that would snap most levers in half. A really easy way to think of this is to view our bones as the rods in a tensegrity system. While the bones give us structure and rigidity, they are not capable of producing movement on their own. As a result, we have to go to the “cables” of our body to understand the role tensegrity plays in biological systems. These cables are better known as fascia.”
 
Interested in diving even deeper? We cover the origins of biotensegrity and their application to baseball in greater detail in our foundational level one courses. 
 

Ditch the outdated textbooks and start your new curriculum with us: 👇