Tensegrity, Chiropractic and the Moving Body
Tensegrity, Chiropractic and the Moving Body
Watch a dancer move across a stage, a gymnast control a landing, a cricketer bowl at full pace, or a soccer player strike a ball.
What you are seeing is not a collection of separate muscles and joints working independently. You are seeing the whole body organise itself around gravity, balance, intention and the demands of the moment.
Movement emerges from the whole system.
One useful way of thinking about this is tensegrity — short for tensional integrity.
In a tensegrity structure, stability comes from the relationship between tension and compression distributed throughout the whole structure. Change one part and other parts respond.
The human body is far more complex than an architectural tensegrity model, but the idea is useful. Bones, muscles, tendons, ligaments and connective tissues form an interconnected network. That network is constantly influenced by movement, gravity, the nervous system and the environment. Tensegrity-like principles have even been demonstrated at the level of individual cells.¹˒²
This is particularly relevant to chiropractic and manual therapy.
When a chiropractor applies pressure, movement or manipulation to one region, the effects are not necessarily limited to that exact spot. The treatment changes local mechanical forces, stimulates sensory receptors in skin, muscles and joints, and alters the information being sent to the nervous system.
From a tensegrity perspective, this makes sense: a local input can influence a wider system because the body is mechanically and neurologically interconnected.
This does not mean that every treatment produces a predictable whole-body change, or that tensegrity alone explains chiropractic. The human body is an adaptable living system, not a fixed structure.
Research suggests that manual therapy can influence pain, muscle activity, sensory processing and aspects of movement control.³⁻⁵ The treatment may therefore change the conditions within which the body organises movement.
And this is where movement becomes essential.
A cricketer does not bowl with an arm alone. A soccer player does not kick with only a leg. A gymnast does not balance using just the shoulders. A dancer does not create movement one joint at a time.
The entire body continually redistributes force and information.
Manual therapy can change part of that system. Movement allows the body to explore what that change has made possible.
That is perhaps the most useful connection between tensegrity and chiropractic.
Treatment provides an input.
The body responds.
Movement reveals the result.
The goal is not simply to change one joint or one muscle, but to help the whole person return to moving confidently and efficiently in the world.
References
Ingber DE. Tensegrity: the architectural basis of cellular mechanotransduction. Annual Review of Physiology. 1997;59:575–599.
Ingber DE. The architecture of life. Scientific American. 1998;278(1):48–57.
Bialosky JE, Bishop MD, Price DD, Robinson ME, George SZ. The mechanisms of manual therapy in the treatment of musculoskeletal pain: a comprehensive model. Manual Therapy. 2009;14(5):531–538.
Wirth B, et al. Neurophysiological effects of high velocity and low amplitude spinal manipulation in symptomatic and asymptomatic humans: a systematic literature review. Spine. 2019;44(15)–E926.
Meyer AL, et al. Unravelling functional neurology: does spinal manipulation have an effect on the brain? Chiropractic & Manual Therapies. 2019;27:60.
