Pressure

We’re all under pressure, some more than others. Without pressure we would not be able to move, because moving requires the ability to shift pressures from place to place. It sounds abstract, but at the foundation of movement is utilizing our anatomical arrangement to manipulate pressures to get where we want to be.

I have a 7-month old daughter, and I may be biased, but she’s so cool. She has established herself as a solid crawler, however walking remains elusive. She has learned how to manage pressures on all fours. She can move herself around the room just fine in that position, but remove two of those points of contact and things get dicey quickly. She has yet to develop the requirements for shifting pressures around successfully with only her feet on the ground.

An example of someone on the other end of the movement spectrum would be an elder. They are very well established in their movement patterns, they have been doing it for decades. Now the case is that they cannot shift pressures around in novel ways. Pressures reside in the same locations for years on end, until a tissue begins to lose its integrity. This may look like arthritis, a muscle tear or even a vascular issue. Tissues, regardless of type, all demand that pressures be shifted, or an injury will occur given enough time.

I often use a sponge as an example to demonstrate this principle. If you apply pressure to a wet sponge, all of the fluid moves away from that area of high pressure. Tissues behave the same way, with the tissues losing blood volume near the high-pressure zone. The ability to apply pressure and then remove it is how we move. Muscles squeeze a bone, stop that area from moving so that another region can move more easily. The same principle holds. Learn to manage pressures and discover a new way to move.

Austin Ulrich, Physical Therapist