Episode 71 - Fascia, Biomechanics, Neuro... Oh My!

In this episode of Three Questions, I explore why so many of us fall into the trap of believing the newest idea has all the answers. From fascia to biomechanics to neuro, I unpack why these conversations become so polarized and why becoming a better teacher isn't about choosing sides. It's about learning how to connect ideas, question assumptions, and let research guide your curiosity instead of your certainty.

In This Episode You'll Hear:

• How to stay curious without losing the foundation you've already built
• How to bridge biomechanics, fascia, and neuro instead of treating them as competing ideas
• Why research should help you ask better questions, not tell you exactly what to think

If you've ever felt overwhelmed by conflicting information in the movement world, this conversation is an invitation to stay curious, think critically, and keep asking better questions.

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Transcript

Meghann Koppele Duffy: Welcome to Three Questions, where critical thinking is king, and my opinions and research are only here to support your learning and deeper understanding. Hey, I'm your host, Meghann, and I'm so excited you clicked on Three Questions today, so we can talk about neuro, fascia, biomechanics, all the things. And I wanted to bring up this discussion because I was just scrolling through social media, and there's this guy who is really studying and really focused on fascia and tensegrity, which I think is great.

And I just kind of was reading his post, and he was making these, like, bold statements, and I'm just... Uh, it's so hard, and I get that social media push negativity, and when you get controversial, that gets comments. But to me, that doesn't foster learning and a deeper understanding. He was making claims that there is nothing mechanical in the human body and insinuating that biomechanics really has no place in movement, and that movement doesn't necessarily just happen at joints, and there's round movements and all this stuff.

And while he was writing, I felt like every sentence, I was like, "Yes, and? But, and? Wait a minute. That's-- We're missing the point here." And rather than commenting on his post to create more push on his negativity, I decided to do a podcast episode about it. And I just wanna set the tone of this episode. If you're looking for me to confirm your bias, well, if I confirm your bias, I want you to do some research that maybe goes against what I say.

And if something I say annoys you, I want you to dig in and under-- ask yourself why what I'm saying is annoying you. Is it because I'm forcing you to critically think? Or is it I'm saying something that is trampling your identity as a movement teacher or what you believe? All these are okay responses, but I think I'd like everybody...

This episode is gonna be about pausing Because when we get so worked up about something, our first thing to do is react rather than pause and be like, "Wait a minute." So when I read his post again, what I do is, what are some things we feel we have in common? And I love that he looks as fascia as a whole system, and that it's really important.

It's not a throwaway. Totally agree. Also, he made a statement by saying, "Looking at the body of stability..." Looking, um, uh, what it, what was the sentence? Um, I actually wrote it down because I don't want to screw up his words. Um, it was, da, da, da, da. "Furthermore, the obsession with having to achieve stability to have mobility is ludicrous.

We live on a moving planet with an ever-expanding universe. We are meant to be experts at managing dynamic instability, and that's what makes us so unique." So he just contradicted himself. So I think the bigger thing is, I agree, you don't necessarily need stability to have mobility. Our body will work around it because of the tensegrity we have through fascia.

Okay? But we live, our body, there's areas that are inherently unstable. So he's now saying, but we need dynamic stability, so we need to manage dynamic instability. And I think the bigger issue in this world is the lack of understanding what stability actually means. Stability in the movement industry has become this idea of s- not moving It's gripping, tight, premeditated.

Stability should not be premeditated. If you cue someone how to stabilize, that is premeditated. I teach a lot of work, and in the neural world, we look at reflexive stability. Now, I call it reflexive stability, but just so we're on the same page, to me, stability should all be reflexive based off the force or demand that's being placed on our body, right?

So I even had to look at my work and the cerebellum because that should be unconscious. So if I'm cueing someone to not change the distance between their leg and this, am I pre... giving them a premeditated response? And I said no, because I'm not telling them how to do it. I'm giving them a space and a framework and allowing their body to decide how and if it needs to stabilize.

And we're still looking and breaking down this work, and we're gonna talk about research later on. But what I want to do, and when I'm looking at what this person wrote, I like to look at the things that we have in common. So a lot of times we're all saying the same things, but just using different words and often using words in different context.

Now, my big bugaboo with the movement industry is the lack of understanding of stability. I'll see physical therapists talk about shoulder stability exercises while they are clearly mobilizing the shoulder. Now, a better way to write that is, "These shoulder exercises can help better differentiate your joints so then when a force or demand is placed on them, they will dynamically or reflexively stabilize as needed."

Now, throughout, as I'm moving and talking right now, my body is moving and adapting at a fast pace. In walking, there's not these moments where we have to stabilize to mobilize. The body is this continuous kinetic chain, and fascia makes that possible. So we use movement throughout our day to help develop the nuance, what the brain knows is available, to continually shape this kinetic chain.

And I like to say walking is kind of a fascial bounce. So whatever kinetic chain we've created through our days and our workouts, that's how we're really gonna move, and we need to tr- teach our body how to better respond. And that's kind of how I look at all my workouts and my sessions with clients. How can I help them better to respond?

Okay? So I wanted to give that background and now lead into question one. So a bit of a long intro to question one. But why do we love the shiny new info? Or forget about what got us to this place of learning. Okay? Now, my background is purely biomechanics. I studied exercise science, um, in my undergrad and my master's.

Now, a lot of people are now getting big on biomechanics and exercise science for Pilates. I think that is great, but I do believe there are limitations to the biomechanical model because it doesn't take into consideration how each person responds to a force or a load, no matter the lever. So a human body is not like a bridge.

Agree with that guy's post, that we, based off how our hands and can, our body can take in sensory input, we're all gonna respond to load differently. So that's something that in biomechanics gets lost. So we can't just teach based off a strict lever system. But man, knowing that lever system, knowing how the bodies work, the body works, knowing how muscles don't...

When the muscles lengthen and shorten, it's not this big to do. Like I've seen people cue, "Bring your ribs closer to your hips and bring your, the back of your ribs away from the bottom of your pelvis." But the bone shouldn't change distance. When the muscles are lengthening and shortening, it's this small little movement, and Google it, the actin and the myosin.

It looks like it's crawling. So it's not like these muscles get really long and really short. It's these small little muscle fibers. So exercise science is very important, but just only looking at that one angle and saying that fascia and tensegrity and neuro doesn't matter is silly. I would never say that.

Nor do I even say that neuro... Now, again, my background's in biomechanics, and it got me really far in this career. I was a very sought-out teacher before I shifted into neuro, and I actually worked with neuro conditions first, which took me into that dive. But through all that, I think what's made me who I am is when I learned all about the neuro and did deeper dives in the cerebellum, I did not throw out the baby out with the bathwater.

I did not throw out that biomechanics background. And I look at teachers, and I'll say though... They'll say, "Oh, you know, I'm doing this eye exercise to do that." I'm like, "Yeah, but what is the goal?" "Oh, for their shoulder to move better." I'm like, "Based off what?" The biomechanics is still dicey, right? So I use the biomechanical and alignment-based lens to see how the neuro is affecting, understanding that sensory drives motor, all these things.

And fascia is so important. My only bugaboo with the fascia people is fascia is often studied in the cadaver lab. Now, you can cut a steak however you want. Now, there's some people who study fascia lines. There's other people, like John Sharkey, or is his first name John? Oh, gosh. S- s- I... Pardon me if I got his first name wrong, just did a paper, and people are, like, getting all up in arms about it.

Well, I read the whole paper. It wasn't a research study about fascia. What I love what he was trying to do is understand the language, and he was an educational post. So there was no new research. It was actually an opinion post, and he was very clear about that. So if you read the method, read the, the, um, how he set u- up this paper, it is peer-reviewed, but it is not a research study.

He was kind of saying people use the word fascia and systems. He probably gets annoyed with how people use the terminology the same as I'm getting annoyed about stability. So understanding how he sees the terminology to be used is one lens through it, which is awesome, and I'm loving that people do this, and I love the idea that we can get tensegrity from this place to this place.

But working with people who have neuro conditions and all humans that have brains, there is not a brain attached to that cadaver. So when I pull one limb, we can see how the fascial system and the muscles will respond. We can maybe see where there was movement pattern breakdowns. But without that brain that's got previous experience, current sensory input, we don't know how the fascia and muscles are going to respond in real time unless we see it in real time with a brain.

So I want to encourage us, when you learn something new, the first thing you should do is say, "Okay, how is this similar to what I was doing before? How is this different? Or is it just different terminology? Where is the gap? Where is the bridge?" Create that bridge. I say to my students in-- when I teach our advanced neuro techniques and for the neuro studio, I'm like, "Guys, I'm gonna throw a lot of new terminology at you.

Some of this is, um, clinical research that's been supported for years. Other is new and emerging stuff. Now, I don't want you to change who you are as a teacher based off one lecture. Stay true to who you are. See how this fits into what you do." That is critical. Build that bridge. Now, I would also encourage you to stop learning and engaging with people who say, "This is the only way.

Biomechanics is dead. Fascia doesn't matter. Neuro is a waste of time." And why I wanna say this is number one, if we engage and push that and give them money, that is just feeding the beast, right? Now, I... when clients ask me a quest- or students ask me questions, I'll give my answer. I'm like, "This is..." I say, "Opinions are like buttholes.

Here's my butthole on this one." Okay? Now, have there been times where I probably leaned into something too hard? Hundred percent. I'm a human. But I always try to, even with my work, when I was looking at the cerebellum in an even deeper lens, and I'm actually trying to organize an- another research study for my dissertation, is I got it all down, and then one of my professors goes, "Yeah, but there's a huge bias and variable right here."

And I literally just wanted to throw my arms up and cry. I didn't see that variable. I didn't see that piece. And to me, the most fun I have is making my work Swiss cheese, poking holes in what I'm doing and teaching, and I'll tell you why that's fun. It keeps you curious and engaged, right? And for me, who's someone who's always creating education, I'm not teaching from someone else's textbook, right?

I don't teach muscle testing and neuro stuff based off old research. I don't. So to keep me hungry and m- g- going more, I'll question myself. And this is not like, "Oh, clap for me." This is how I stay organized, engaged, and happy, staying involved in the process. I'm sharing that with you. Take that on, okay? So when you're looking at people who are just spouting evidence-based, the first question I ask them is, "Can you share with me some of the clinical research you have done?"

And then you'll hear cricket, cricket, tumbleweed, tumbleweed. Now, if they have done clinical research, usually people who have done research understand the limitations of research, the sample size, the biases, the variables. People who have never actually done research themselves might be really good at finding research to fit what they want and then say, "This is what it is."

But I want you to be careful of that. Evidence-based is important, but it is just a piece of the puzzle, okay? So I'm gonna go back to question one and repeat it. Why when we learn something new are we letting it replace what got us to this position of learning? Now, keep in mind, maybe you were learning a different method that you did not believe in or buy into, and this method is like, "Oh my God, this fits more with what I do."

Okay, but why did you study that other method for so long? There was something about it you liked. And my favorite thing is when students say this to me, and I just got an email from a student from Australia. She's like, "It's kind of crazy. I feel like everything you've taught us in the course, no disrespect, I've been doing already

I didn't take that as disrespect. And I say in the course, "I'm gonna help you understand why you're doing these things. Let's get the research and the brain-based strategy behind it so you can do it more frequently." And she said, "But now I feel, like, more confident and to do what I'm doing." Okay? That to me is the goal with learning.

When you're learning any of these techniques that have all acronyms and stuff like that, look at what is the-- what works really well for that? Is it a passive modality? Is it an active modality? Will my client be able to do that on their own? Am I giving them the autonomy? Ah, okay, well, but this is gonna teach me something.

How can I then build the bridge to give them the autonomy? All these things are questions I want you guys to answer. I know, it's a lot of work, but I, I, I don't know everything. I don't know a lot, but I do know one thing. Being always focused on the end range, becoming the expert, is not as fun as being curious and staying in the process.

I'm telling you, I've done both. This is way more fun. Cool? Question two. Can we just pause when we feel like we're going too far in one direction? So I understand question one and question two are similar, but I wanted to bring back into the pause. Okay? So a lot of my students kind of go even deeper into the neuro, and I always want them to pause and be like, "Why do you feel like you need to learn more right now?

You just learned a lot of things." And oftentimes why they want to learn more is because they're not good at the thing yet, and they're looking for the secret, right? The secret is keep doing it and getting better. The only reason I'm so good at what I do is because I've been doing it for 25 years, okay?

And I'm telling you, I still get better as a teacher. I had some sessions in Australia, I'm like, "That was such a cool session. I feel like I learned so much," right? It was so awesome. This client was having so many cerebellar tremors, no neurological condition. Um, you know, in, in the movement industry they'll be like, "Oh, the tremor of truth," but that, that is not a place of learning and building strength.

That was her nervous system responding, and they were big, and we weren't doing big movements. And I had to go back to, like, my Neuro 101 and I was like, "Hold on. I use the olfactory system." I had her smell an essential oil just to reset the nervous system. Now, this is something I learned 15 years ago, and it wasn't a throwaway, but it's not something I need to use all the time.

But it was so cool going back to the basics again. So after question one, when you learn something new, when you take a neuro course, when you take a fascia course, when you take a Pilates training or a, a kettlebell training, I want you to think, "Man, before I go too far in this direction, let me pause. How can I fit this all together?"

Kind of awesome. And then when you go further in that direction, you haven't lost who you are as a teacher and a person, because let me tell you, there is not one secret or one pathway to success. Anybody's trying to sell you that, run away. To me, the most successful practitioners are the ones that don't try to carbon copy their mentor, but can see it through their own eyes and explain it in a way that makes sense to them without disrespecting, stealing, or changing the material in a way that changes its meaning, like watering it down, right?

Um, I at once said to a student, she's like, "I think this could be taught better this way." And I was like, "Explain to me why." And she said, "X, Y, and Z." I go, "Yes, but you forgot step one, joint centration. That shoulder isn't centrated." She goes, "Yeah, it is." I go, "Okay, hold on. Explain to me why you think that's centrated."

And she did, and I go, "Well, what about this?" And she goes, "Yeah, but that's not in ideal alignment." I go, "Centration and alignment are two different things." And she goes, "Oh." And I go, "No, no, no, not oh. Oh." And that actually helped me to talk to some of my students 'cause I think they conflated ideal alignment with joint centration.

I'm like, "Yeah, joint centration and ideal alignment would be on someone who was kind of dead, or they've had perfect movement patterns their whole life and have no trauma to their body or stuff like that," right? So this person has a lot of experience and patterns and neuro stuff going on, so this is actually where the joint is centrated.

She was like, "Oh my God, now I see why you taught it that way." I said, "Awesome. Yes, and..." But I appr- I did not say this at the time, but now I would say, "But I appreciate your curiosity in questioning it, and I feel like you have helped me better explain it. But I would encourage you, before you go changing things, truly understand it."

And it's so- something I say in my courses all the time. You'll hear me say this line, "Rules are made to be broken, and you better break them. You have my permission to break every rule I give you in this course, provided you understand the rule in the first place. Don't just break the rule because you think you know better."

Now, you can do whatever you wanna do, but don't say you're doing reflex stability or neuro stuff if you're not actually doing that. So understand the rule and know exactly why you're breaking it. Or be like, "I am not getting this. I'm just gonna futz around and figure it out until I get it." I love that. I would rather students tell me that because I'd be like, "I know.

That's how I figured this out." They're like, "What?" "I didn't understand what my teacher was saying, so I futzed around until I figured it out, and then I realized what she was teaching was stability was not stability. It was preemptive gripping, and it changed the whole trajectory of my learning." So keep effing around and find out.

Cool? Last but not least, question three, what I really wanna focus on is, are we forgetting one very important thing Research, whether it is a systematic review. So a systematic review is often when somebody's doing a review of multiple studies. Randomized control study, that's when you're actually... That's kind of a what we mostly think about a study.

So if I have a control group and a regular group, so I'm having two groups do Pilates. One of the first research studies I did, we did seated Pilates for people with MS. One group got the four-quadrant cues. One cue got the regular Pilates cues. Now, research is not giving us the answer. It's helping us identify the next question.

So question three is, are we forgetting that? So when I did that research study, the randomized control trial that I just talked about, we realized that we created an extra variable. The four-quadrant cues, it needed more explanation. They got less movement. So that group did have improved balance to the other group, but it wasn't significant enough for me.

Okay? The juice wasn't worth the squeeze based off the numbers. And I said, "Here's the difference. The Pilates group got more movement. They were able to make mistakes. Their cerebellum was active even though they didn't even know and nobody was cueing it. When we use the four-quadrant cues, I think we don't explain.

We just cue. We give them the same amount of movement. It ac- has to be the same amount of time of movement, and then we'll test it." Again, Swiss cheese. So that research study helped me ask my next question, which is, how actually important is it that cueing of cueing in the exercises? I know. It's annoying.

Sometimes when people move Their cerebellum recognizes the errors and makes adjustments. Ah. That's a good thing, guys. So here I'm, I am trying to perfect all these perfect cues, and we know... You ever use a cue that works great for one client and then the other client it's like total shit, right? So the next question to ask is how much does cueing actually matter in movement, or do we just give, need to give them time to sort it out?

Then that asks another question. Do we have to set pain as a separate variable and remove people with chronic pain? Because people with chronic pain might not be able to do the movement enough. That's gonna inhibit the cerebellum. So these just are more questions we keep asking. Okay? Now, going back to other research, there's quasi-experimentals where you don't randomize the group.

Cohort studies, um, case control studies, ex-, uh, ex post facto studies. I should know these all 'cause I had to learn them in research methods. Case studies, scoping reviews, educational. There's all different types of research. I had no idea there were so many types of research. Oh, my. Okay? Fascia, biomechanics, neuro.

Oh, my. There's a lot out there. So question three, which I think is the most important: Are we forgetting that research doesn't tell us what to do? It should help us identify the next question to ask. Because we cannot say based off these 1,000 people you should not do this exercise for knee pain. Remember that whole don't let your knees go past your toes study?

It was based off, like, one study, and people, like, ran with it. Now, name a sport or movement event, i.e. walking, where your knee doesn't go past your toes. However, because how that study was designed, those people who didn't do those exercise had less pain, yeah, 'cause they were moving that joint less. Okay? So please don't let the evidence-based police make you feel that you're doing something wrong because it doesn't fit the research.

Ask another question. And evidence-based police people, I think it's important we respect the research, but I don't think you should be barking orders unless you're doing research yourself. Fair? I think that's fair. Also, people who poo-poo evidence-based They are trying to use evidence to help people get the best out of movement.

There are some crazy things people do and cues they get and stuff based off what Joseph Pilates said in the '40s. Okay? Now, um, I've been teaching for 25 years. I cue very differently at year 25 than I did on year one and year five and year 10 and even year 20. So people change and adapt, so we can't, like, just go by one thing somebody said.

And also, if I'm being totally honest, it shocks me. I'll have students say, "You said you should never do this exercise. Can you explain?" And I'm like, first of all, I... Apologies if that's what you heard, but I never think you should never do an exercise. I might have said I would not do this exercise because of X, Y, or Z, or if you're gonna do this exercise, look at X, Y, or Z.

Because I like to argue both sides of the argument You-- I mean, it makes my students crazy sometimes. I'm like, all right. So here's, here's a dilemma I'm having in my head. So when I'm with my mentees and when they're doing observation, I basically talk out loud through the session, so they don't have to guess what I'm thinking.

I'll be like, "All right. So did you notice when I touched her foot, her leg was moving less?" Yes. So we know something going on in the foot is a disruptor. So I have to decide right now, should I just go fully open chain, get her hip moving, and then in the next session address the foot? Or should I add more sensory input to the foot and see what happens?

Let's talk about the benefits of both sides. If I just go open chain, she's gonna feel a lot better, but she has to get up and walk out of here and do X, Y, or Z. So I am fearful that it won't stick and she'll only feel good for a short time. That's my fear, that's not reality. Number two, if I add sensory input to the foot and we derail everything we have, the client's gonna get frustrated.

I don't wanna set off pain X, Y, or Z. So I said, "What do you think we should do?" And then we have to make a decision, and then once we make that decision, we have to be ready to pivot if our decision was bad. Okay? So say we just go open chain, and I just keep adding sensory input to her foot until we get to that th-threshold, and I say to the client, "Listen, we're working on something here today.

Now my job is to get that hip to respond when there is more sensory load on your foot, like when you're walking. But today, I really just wanna wake up your hip and give your brain something new." Okay? So we devil's advocate both sides and then come to the decision, find the gray area. Do that with research.

And guys, don't just read the results of a research. I'm gonna challenge you to read the methods, the-- and how they came up with their analysis. And you might not understand all of it, and that's okay. But see what was the... what is the... how did they come up with, with the number for how many people are gonna be in their study?

Because there is equations to do that based off what you're trying to prove Okay? My next study, I am going to need about 1,000 participants, so we're gonna look at tightening up variables so I need less participants because that is a lot. Okay? Now, if it's a small sample size, okay, well, how did they, how did they choose to analyze that?

Did they randomize it? Are they doing a quasi-experiment? How are they breaking down to come to that solution? And then again, based off words, so statistically significant, um, all these words that are used in research sometimes can make it sound better, the results better than they actually were. So again, don't be so...

Don't be judgmental, but just kind of ask questions, look at it, and be so thankful for the researcher who put the time and effort. So this is why I'm not mad at the evidence-based people. God, research takes a lot of time and energy. It's, it's a lot of work. Okay? So taking that and being like, "Oh my God, this can help us answer the question," and there's some research to support this.

And look, they're saying, like, what if my next study shows that cueing actually doesn't matter? Am I gonna change the way I teach? No, but I'm gonna tell my students, "All right. We've had studies where cueing doesn't matter as much as we think it does." Why do I think that is? Well, I think that is because if we give a client enough reps and explain to them the goal, their brain is gonna be getting sensory input through those movements, changing the motor output.

Hopefully, we're getting the cerebellum involved, so maybe we focus on the goals, and the cues we're giving are to help improve the brain's ability to sense the error, not be so worried about the cue, worried about the goal of the cue. So we're not gonna stop cueing like it doesn't matter. Our clients are there because they wanna be told what to do, so we take the research, and we make it our own.

So to close up this episode I know I didn't get into specifics of fascia, neuro, um, and biomechanics because I don't think it would be fair if I just did to you what I'm saying I don't like being done, saying that fascia doesn't matter or neuro's number one. If you really want my opinion, I'm gonna give it to you.

I think they all matter, and they all work critically together. I don't think one part of the body is more important than any other part of the body. Because if one part of the body goes, something else is gonna pick up slack because our bodies and brains are brilliant compensators. That's what keeps us alive.

It's amazing, and I love neuro because it helps us get into the whys. Oh, why does that person get a shoulder injury from that weight when the other... Well, what's the sensory input going into their hands? How are they managing? How is their visual system? It can answer more of the whys, not giving us a definitive answer, but we'll never know the whys.

But do I think neuro replaces all the knowledge I have in biomechanics, the fascia model, stuff like that? No. Do I think that doing a cadaver dissection is gonna make you a better teacher? No. But I think it's so awesome to understand and see the body move and see what it's like, right? Do I think teaching is gonna make you a better teacher, asking better questions?

Yeah. But I think we need it all. So what I'd love everybody to do is be continual learners. Don't just learn from me. Don't just learn from Joe, Betty, Sally, and Fred. Okay, that was the weirdest selection of names. And listen to people you disagree with. And I know it's hard, and especially on social media because they're being controversial to get more views, but everybody's running a business, right?

So think about, "Okay, how are they that different from me? Okay, we're actually not that different." To me, when I read that guy's post, I kind of was like, "Yeah, I agree with him about that, but I think the bigger problem is nobody actually understands what stability is," right? And for me, where I'm using the idea of stability is actually to change and remap the brain so that the brain has more availability.

I'm not using these cues when, uh, my clients are walking. I like to say walking, it's like the chicken is cooked. If you don't like how it taste, you gotta go back to the kitchen and work the prep better, okay? So to rehash question one, two, and three. Shiny new info. Get excited, but don't forget about what got you there.

Think about that. Number two, ask yourself, are you pushing too far in one direction? Can you build a bridge to see how these things can better fit together? And when it comes to research, are you dimis- dismissing research? Are you reading research like gospel? Or are you letting research ask you your next question?

So on that note, I'm gonna let you guys go. And if you have any questions for me, you know where to find me. DM me, send me a carrier pigeon, send me an email, and I look forward to seeing you on the next episode