Redistribute your muscle tone

A recent scientific model of the Alexander Technique proposes that its diverse effects – ranging from pain-reduction to changes in mood – are the result of changes to postural muscle tone. In particular, there is evidence that the Alexander Technique improves the adaptivity and distribution of postural muscle tone. This blog post takes a look at the latter: how the Alexander Technique alters the distribution of postural tone.

What does it mean to redistribute postural muscle tone?

To begin, it’s important to realise that the nervous system has an abundance of muscular strategies for achieving postural stability. Crucially, this applies most obviously to how it stabilizes our inherently unstable spines. It has been shown that the nervous system will stabilize the spine using a wide variety of combinations or distributions of muscular actions: for example, it can employ superficial muscle activity versus deep muscle activity, lateral versus medial muscle activity and so on.

Alexander Technique redistributes tone towards deeper muscles

There is growing evidence that the Alexander Technique improves the distribution of postural muscle tone along the central axis (neck and torso) by shifting activity from superficial muscles (such as sternocleidomastoid and trapezius) to deeper muscles (such as semispinalis and deep multifidus). One of the effects of this appears to be reduced spinal curvature in the thoracic and lumbar regions after Alexander Technique training.

Deeper muscles are shorter in range, cross fewer joints and can be counterbalanced locally. They can therefore control movement and position efficiently and precisely.

Conversely, superficial muscles cross multiple joints and can cause tension to spread across the body as more muscles are recruited to stabilize their activity. This can lead to stiffness in other parts of the body and interfere with balance, mobility and breathing.

Redistributing tone around the shoulder joints

In addition to changes along the central axis, other areas of the body can arguably benefit from a redistribution of muscle tone.

Movement of the upper arm (humerus) in the shoulder (glenohumeral) joint is a good example, since tension across the shoulders is a common problem. Activity in superficial muscles such as pectoralis major, deltoid and latissimus dorsi can be shifted towards activity in deeper muscles such as the rotator cuff muscles. It is commonly taught that the function of this latter group of muscles is to stabilize the shoulder joint. However, their function is also to rotate the upper arm – hence the name.

Below lists the muscles involved in the movement of the upper arm at the shoulder joint, and indicates that activity can shift from superficial to deep layers of muscles. The rotator cuff muscles (mentioned above) are marked with an asterisk (*):

Explore how to redistribute tone around your shoulder joint

Below is a guided exploration for shifting habitual muscle activity around the shoulder joint from superficial muscles to the deeper layers of muscles. This exploration is based on an idea described in Susan Bauer’s book The Embodied Teen.

1. Lie in the semi-supine position (above). Most adults should place a centimetre or two of books underneath their head.
2. Slowly reach the fingers of one hand to the ceiling until your shoulder blade comes off the floor. Then let your shoulder relax slowly downwards while keeping your fingers reaching up and your arm at 90 degrees to your torso.
3. Are you releasing the muscles around your shoulder joint? Let the earth support the weight of your arm in its vertical position.
4. Now imagine there’s a coloured pencil at the tip of your longest finger, and that it is actually touching the ceiling. ‘Draw’ a tiny circle on the ceiling by circling your arm at the shoulder joint only. Is your shoulder still as relaxed as possible and well supported by the floor? Use the least amount of effort to draw the circle.
5. Increase little by little the size of the circles you’re drawing on the ceiling. Keep drawing slow circles until you’re drawing the largest circle you can. Check in with yourself to see if you’re still using the least amount of effort possible.
6. Once you’ve drawn a few large circles, slowly make the circles smaller and smaller until your arm comes to rest vertically in the centre.
7. Slowly return your arm to its rest position by your side. Take a moment to notice how your arm feels, and compare it with your other arm.

You may well notice that at first your arm is unable to make smooth circles at the shoulder joint – the movement can feel ‘jerky’ or ‘rough’. This occurs as the superficial muscles around the shoulder joint learn to release and the deeper muscles at the shoulder joint learn to take over the role.