The Alexander Technique And Performance Enhancement
Alexander made three vital observations with regard to human nature and performance. In my opinion, his discoveries are absolutely vital and any method designed to train and develop athletes must take them into consideration. I am not aware of any that make allowances for all three of these basic factors of the human condition and performance.
Psycho-Physical Unity The mind and body are inseparable. No single voluntary act is purely physical or mental. Every pathway from the brain eventually leads to a muscle via the thalamus. The thalamus is part of the mid-brain that performs a function similar to a telephone exchange by sending signals from the sensory organs to the sensory cortex and relaying messages back. This highly complex region is involved in emotion, memory and sleep, directing hormone production in the hypothalamus in preparation for the body’s reaction. What we think does influence the outcome of an act through modification of the signals passing through. In spite of this we tend to think of the mind and body as distinct entities. We do physical exercise to enhance fitness and mental work such as positive thinking to improve the mind. Many of the so-called mind-body techniques emphasise the importance of the unity between mind and body whilst maintaining the concept of a split that needs to be brought together! Alexander referred to the ‘total organism’ and used the term ‘self’ to prevent a dualistic approach. Daily experience reminds us that we are what we think as thoughts translate into chemical reactions through the production of hormones. When I get nervous I get ‘butterflies’ in my stomach and if I get angry my muscles tighten, heart rate increases and blood pressure rises. A training programme has to acknowledge the individual as a whole and not define exercise as either mental or physical as to do so reduces the benefit of an activity. In the gymnasium many perform exercises listening to music or even reading the newspaper. It appears to be worse for swimmers and runners who comment on the boredom of completing the distances required to keep fit. I know many runners who give themselves a problem to solve during the time. It seems that whilst the ‘body’ is being worked out the ‘mind’ can be doing something more worthy of its ability. This separation means psycho-neuro-muscular integration is rarely accomplished thus limiting the real benefits that mindfulness to activity can bring. Optimum performance is not achieved by separating the organism in two. If we can accept that repetition of good movement improves performance then we must recognise that the opposite is also possible. Training whilst injured, tired or even just pre-occupied can lead to poor quality movement and new inefficient movement patterns. Use Affects Functioning Use refers to the whole organism and the process of how we control our actions, how we choose to react to stimuli. Functioning relates to the automatic actions of the body that we cannot or should not directly control such as breathing, digestion and circulation. Functioning also relates to how the organism operates as a whole. Alexander discovered that the standard of our use has a constant influence, for good or ill, on functioning. Following an ankle injury while the joint feels painful, the knee, hip and other leg will have to compensate. Within a short period the adjustments we make to cope become a subconscious habit. This pattern, if undetected, lowers the standard of use in the individual. Athletes know that the type of training conditions the characteristic of a muscle. Different sports put different demands on muscle, for example a cross-country runner uses the slow white fibres of a muscle whereas the short bursts of activity in football rely on the faster red fibres for action. When we train in a particular activity the demands placed on the muscle will condition it for that purpose. An experiment by Buller(1960), proved that the nerve ‘tells the muscle fibre not only what to do, but also what to be’. When he switched the nerves attached to slow and fast fibres, the characteristic of both muscles changed to that of the muscle previously served by the nerve. The frequent firing patterns that occur in endurance training slow down the muscle increasing aerobic function (using oxygen). Short burst activities in sport increase the muscle’s anaerobic capacity (using glycogen, blood sugar, stored in the muscle). Even when standing, if the ‘movement’ muscles are held habitually tight, the frequent firing pattern will slow down a muscle intended for short burst activities. Poor conditioning will cause muscle to perform functions not originally intended by nature. What has become normal is not necessarily natural. Alexander stressed the constant factor of the influence we have on our well being. By improving our manner of use the influence will be beneficial. Repetition of a movement with good use ensures all parts of the organism are functioning in a way suitable to their design, that is, as a player in the total pattern. Faulty Sensory Appreciation Struggling to overcome the problem that threatened his career, Alexander observed an inconsistency between what he wished to do and what actually occurred. In his book ‘An Introduction to Kinesiology – The Science and Practise of Physical Activity’, Michael Wade describes:- "Skill is that which minimises the discrepancy between intent and outcome." This ‘credibility gap’ is evident at coaching sessions. There will be a discrepancy between the acts of the coach and that of the pupils carrying out the instructions. Verbal instructions are interpreted according to individual conditioning and executed with varying ability, depending on their standard of use. Faulty sensory appreciation or debauched kinaesthesia (our sense of movement) was the term Alexander used to describe a condition that due to its nature we do not know we have. If our sensory mechanisms are unreliable, how are we to know? In the Hamburg Tennis Masters 2001 competition Tim Henman, ranked in the top ten, was beaten by German outsider Lars Burgsmueller ranked 96th in the world. After the match Henman said - "I couldn’t have felt better coming into this match and I couldn’t have played much worse. I am staggered, it was appalling." A classic example of not being able to trust what your senses are telling you. Just as eyesight can gradually decline without our knowledge the same is possible with muscle sense. What we sense may not be an accurate picture due to a number of conditions. The more an over-worked muscle adapts to an habitual contracted state, the more it suppresses the muscle sense by preventing activation of the stretch reflex thus reducing sensory input. The signal coming from the originating nerve can be modified at every synapse (point at which nerves connect) along the path resulting in a different message being received - a sort of ‘Chinese Whispers’. Everything we know and perceive of our environment comes via our sensory mechanisms influencing every thought, therefore the quality and reliability of the sensory systems govern all actions. If the reliability of these mechanisms is in doubt, the subsequent movements are initiated using incomplete data. For example, we may be unaware that a muscle is being over worked while others are hardly working at all, as a result the body’s natural functions, such as the positive support postural reflexes that maintain balance, are ‘overruled’ once the new pattern becomes habitual and begins to feel right. If the head is invariably pulled back by a tight trapezius muscle, the new sensations received from the inner ear and eyes will eventually be interpreted as horizontal. Movements of the head, registered against this perceived normal position, feed corrupted information to the nervous system. As the position of the head and visual mechanisms are instrumental in movement, the resulting muscle activity will be inappropriate for the given activity. What we perceive is therefore not always an accurate account of the state of our body in relation to the environment. We may feel we are sitting comfortably in our armchair, when in reality the position is putting undue stress on the spine. We believe exercise will improve our strength and stamina, yet we may be unaware of creating substandard patterns of movement if our co-ordination is poor. The feedback mechanisms do not tell us we are using too much effort to get up from a chair so we continue to perform the move in a way that feels right. Yet if some of the unnecessary actions mentioned in section two are part of the pattern, we can conclude that our idea of right may be wrong. We cannot trust what we feel. The majority of training disciplines have overlooked this element of the human condition when devising methods to improve performance. If we perform only the exercises that feel good and neglect others we dislike, we start to limit movement to habitual patterns that may or may not be useful. If we cannot be certain of how we carry out an act then we cannot know if it is beneficial or harmful.
Alexander's Radical Solution the alexander technique and performance enhancement
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