Most people, whenever they think about movement, think about muscles. Like, okay, I’m gonna move, and it’s the muscles that cause that to happen. Well, the fact is that if you study neurology, that’s actually far, far, far beyond, where we actually need to start. In Z Health, we use what we call The Eight Levels Model.
The eight levels model allows us to go piece by piece through the nervous system to understand truly what is causing movement problems. What’s causing pain? What’s causing performance decrements? So let’s talk about the most basic level. It’s the most fundamental unit within the body that’s eventually going to result in movement occurring.
And that, foundational unit is called a receptor. Now, receptors are these little, you know, micro circuits or micro uh, cells that are found throughout the body. They’re found in the skin, they’re found in fascia, they’re found in tendons and ligaments. They’re found in muscles, they’re found in internal organs, and we have receptors that are receptive to very specific forms of input.
Now, what does that mean? Well, it means that if we go through and we cut people up and we examine all those receptors and we test them, we start to find that there are some, some receptors that are responsive to vibration. And when you find that out, you go, okay, that’s cool, but at what frequency? So we actually figured out we have receptors that respond to both high and low frequency vibration.
Guess what? They’re different receptors. We have other receptors that respond to heat and cold. Those are called thermoreceptors. We have receptors for chemo sensations of if you put tiger balm or some kind of analgesic balm on your arm. The burning or cool, or whatever sensation you get from that, that’s chemo  chemoreceptors are becoming active.
So we have this whole list of receptors and here’s why it matters., A lot of people have heard the, the term years and years ago was popular in the computer world. Uh, GIGO, right? GIGO, garbage in, garbage out. Well, that actually applies to the human nervous system.
So meaning if your receptors are dysfunctional in some way, and they are sending inappropriate either low quality or insufficient data to your central nervous system. What that creates is a basic hole, if you wanna call it that, in your brain’s map of that area of your body. Hopefully you know this, that the brain has maps. It has multiple maps of your body running around interconnecting so that it can understand where you are in space, how you’re moving how the external environment is affecting you. Why? Because if we have a map, we can understand where we are. If we understand where we are, we have a higher likelihood of staying safe.
So in the real world, what it comes down to is if you’re dealing with pain, you’re dealing with performance issues, you have to understand receptors, you have to understand how to assess them, how to train them, and how to blend that with everything else that you’re already doing from kind of a biomechanical perspective.
So if you are a movement professional. You’re a doctor, a coach, a therapist of any kind. You’re interested in blending applied neuroscience into what you do. Go into the pinned comment and either email us there or you can DM us on Instagram because we would love to talk to you about our training.
Now, if we continue down this road, we’re talking about receptors. We’re talking about, okay, what should I do? If you are a movement professional, you need to understand how to perform a full neurologic exam. A lot of people go, why would I do that? Isn’t that the neurologist’s job? Well, if you work with human bodies, it’s being run by a nervous system. And if you’re trying to improve movement, you have to understand how to do a neuro exam.
Neuro exams begin with testing sensors or receptors, so you have to understand how to do light touch, testing warm, cool, testing, sharp, dull, uh, what’s called graphesthesia. You need to understand how to test proprioception. Beyond that, you have to be able to understand how to test the visual system, the inner ear, because these are all different receptors.
And if they are dysfunctional, eventually they can create pain and movement dysfunction. Now, I know this sounds a little bit wild. Like there’s a lot of stuff there that you have to know, and it’s true. But if you want to get started very simply, here’s how you to do it.
I’m gonna recommend that you test three things. Find one of your clients that has a lot of scars, right? I always tell people, uh, an area that has a lot of scars is a great place to actually begin learning how to do sensation testing. And what you’re gonna do is you’re gonna take a tissue, you’re going to take a vibration tool of some kind, usually a little handheld massager.
And then you’re gonna take something that has a sharp and a dull point, and that can be something as simple as taking a paperclip and bending it so it has two points, and then it has the dull side.
What you’re gonna do is you’re gonna go on that scar, and let’s say it’s on my left knee, and then you’re gonna find the corresponding area on the right knee that hopefully doesn’t have a scar.
And you’re gonna take the tissue and you’re gonna run it down the scar and you’re gonna say, does this feel like this? And you’re gonna compare it to the other side. Don’t do it at the same time. Do one side and then do the other side. You’re gonna ask the client, especially, it’s better if you do it with their eyes closed, are the sensations the same?
Now, what will usually happen is that if it’s, around the scar, they’ll go, Hey, can you do it again? I’m not sure. As soon as they tell you, can you do it again? Can you do it again? Can you do it again? What they’re telling you is, number one, they don’t know what they’re , they’re sensing. Number two, it is different than the other side. And number three, we always say it’s their brain’s subtle way of asking you, hey, do that a lot because I need it because my brain doesn’t understand that sensation. So you do that with light touch like a tissue. You do that same thing with vibration, and you do the same thing with the paperclip testing, sharp and dull.
Why would you do that again, because of neuroanatomy, because that information’s gonna be transmitted in different pathways through the spinal cord and go to different areas of the brain. So if you are interested in really understanding movement at a very deep level, it all revolves around understanding the nervous system and understanding the nervous system and how it creates our movement and our pain and our performance begins with understanding receptors.
So again, if you are a movement professional and you find this stuff interesting, we have, um, a lot of information about this throughout all of our certifications. In fact, the model that I’m talking about, the eight levels model is the system underlying our system that goes through, we, we go through it in greater layers of detail in every one of our certifications, but you can also check out our free resources. You can check out the blogs. But most importantly, if you are already awesome at biomechanics and you want to get better results for yourself, you wanna get better results from your clients, and you wanna do that by adding neuroscience again, make sure to get in contact with us ’cause we’d love to talk with you.
