Musculotendinous Meridians & the Role of Fascia in the Body

The body is not an accumulation of parts. When you do a bicep curl, you’re not isolating the bicep, every movement involves a coordinated resonance that passes through the entire body. Mechanotransduction is a principle in biomechanics that recognizes that when one part of the body moves, every cell in the body resonates and responds to that movement. The body moves as a whole in every action; musculotendinous meridians, or sinew channels form the network through which whole-body movement in the musculoskeletal system is coordinated.

Sinew channels, or musculotendinous meridians can be viewed as myofascially continuous structures linked through a fibrous network of fascia. Anatomy texts list muscle attachments as muscles connecting from bone to bone through tendons, but the reality is much more complex and far reaching. Part of the mechanical pull that is produced by a muscle is transferred to the origin and insertion of that muscle, but part of that pull also transfers through the fascia to other muscles. These transmissions of force connect muscles and communicate proprioceptive information that make coordinated movement possible.

Myofascial Meridians