Movement within the Nervous System

One of the most important things to understand about your body and the way we move it is largely regulated by the central nervous system (the “CNS”.) The CNS is composed of your brain, the spinal cord and the nerves. It is a lightning fast communication system that controls every aspect of your sensation and movement. The CNS is like the software for your body, and it determines how your hardware (the muscles, bones and joints) performs. The CNS gets to decide what muscles fire, how strong and fast they are, how far they will elongate, what motor patterns and postures you adopt, and whether you will experience pain – in short, everything that matters.

Another important thing to understand is that the preferences of the CNS are not necessarily your preferences. The main priority of the CNS is to keep you alive at all cost. While you might want to run a marathon, trek a mountain, lifting weights all weekend, or sit at your computer for eight hours a day without pain, your CNS is not really interested about any of that – it just wants to protect you from physical threats and ensure your survival.

Also, the CNS’s “beliefs” about what is a danger to survival are not always precise – they are based on millions of years of evolution in an environment in which one of the main dangers was getting eaten by predators such as wild animals. Back to our ancestors’ times, an injury such as an ankle sprain or even a back pain was a real threat to their existence because it would compromise their physical response to threat, and the CNS therefore takes it very seriously. As such, your body is hardwired with a massive overabundance of reflexive and unconscious mechanisms to protect your body from physical damage and any perceived threat.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, social media has encouraged people to dive into fitness challenges. Most people decided to start running, cycling or any other physical activity. Have you thought why this period especially was such a massive reaction or need for physical movement from everyone? Have you considered that this decision to start moving as never before in your life might not be100% yours?

As we explained before the CNS’ perception of the threat and the reflexive response to our body is: I want movement (fight/flight response); I have to do something!