Learned activity
Muscle function requires normal joint mechanics throughout the body and well-coordinated neuromuscular activities. These neuromuscular activities require good reflex activities of a genetic nature, which have been coordinated and modified by properly learned patterns of activity.
The central nervous system [CNS] is influenced by numerous stimuli, but the bulk of stimuli affecting the function of the central nervous system is from muscular activity that is constantly affected by gravity.
Muscular control develops slower in man than in most other animals. The human brain at birth is approximately one fifth of its ultimate weight however an animal is born with a more fully-grown brain, which soon after birth is ready to react to external stimuli. The animal's behaviour is reactive and is a physiological process that reacts to its environment. Such animals have little capacity for learning. Learning, as a general concept, is the acquisition of new responses to stimuli: therefore, learning is also possible only by extinguishing or diminishing basic instinctive responses.
Man modifies and controls his instinctive actions and reactions. His central nervous system growth is influenced by external stimuli. Environmental and individual experiences play a large part in the development of function of man. Muscular activity has little if any genetic inheritance but develops as a learned activity.
Learned activities can be considered as skills. It is accepted that, in the process of learning a skill, almost all behaviour is motor in nature. Man responds with voluntary and involuntary movements that include basic posture.
Feedback is one of the most important concepts in learning and is an important factor in the control of movement and behaviour.
The feeling that person has of an action or function such as posture may feel normal but may be abnormal and becomes a deeply ingrained pattern.
The impression that bombards the central nervous system is a feedback mechanism coming from the exterior, but it may emit also from internal sources.
For Example: Eye contact with the golf ball
- Immediate anxiety about where the ball has gone.
- May hit someone. Liability if do not shout 4.
- Cost of lost golf balls as it heads for an impenetrable thicket.
Colin Montgomerie says the professional golfer knows where the ball has gone because he knows how the impact felt, he knows what the ball flight will be, he has accommodated for wind resistance and he knew what club to use for the distance, he can adjust to many variables. From having repeated this movement pattern many times before he has an intuitive feel for where the ball went. This is called kinesthetic intelligence. The ability to distinguish between many combinations of neuromuscular impulses.
Awareness of movement
We have receptors in our ligaments and muscles that report back to the CNS about tension, position in space, movement and rest. Our body has an inbuilt mechanism to automatically feedback information necessary to learning new movement patterns. If we learn to pay attention to this innate intelligence we will become quick learners indeed. The Feldenkrais method uses this ability for postural re-education. Pilates exercises requires one to take more notice of the muscles moving during exercise to enable you to gain control over your movement patterns. This awareness is possible to use during the golf swing to better understand how you move.
Muscles, spine, pelvis, stable, swing, weaknesses imbalance
It is the stabilizing muscles of the spine that are important to gain control over the larger muscle groups acting to move the body. The stabilizers are the rotators and internal pelvic floor muscles as well as the internal and external oblique abdominal muscles. All these muscles act together to support the normal lumbar pelvic rhythm.
Primitive reflexes
Walking is a complex movement pattern that develops over the first 10 to 20 months of life. We have primitive reflexes to give us the blueprint for movement patterns and once the neuro-musculo-skeletal pattern is developed the reflex will be inhibited. Usually.
The development of the spinal curves occurs during the first years of life and postures are further developed over time and are influenced by what we do and how we feel.