do you need tension or relaxation?

“Sometimes I’ll start a sentence, and I don’t know where it’s going. I just hope I find it somewhere along the way.”

- Michael Scott, The Office

This is going to be one of those sentences. Or in this case, articles.

I want to start by talking about strategies, specifically in the context of movement, and then extrapolate that to a wider context.

Something I observe frequently among my clients who are dealing with pain, specifically those with back pain (though it is relevant/present in other areas of pain, just not as notably), is a lack of movement strategies.

Due to the pain they’re experiencing, and especially if they’ve been experiencing back pain for a long time, many people adopt compensatory strategies to avoid feeling pain. And more often than not, it’s the same strategy. It’s tension. They brace their core. They guard. They resist movement of their spine, and their nervous system locks it down in a well-meaning attempt to keep things safe and avoid feeling pain. This ultimately backfires, though, because our spines were made to move, and if we only ever use 1 strategy to move, that means we’re putting the same stress on the same tissues all the time, which can ultimately lead to more pain (not less) over time. There’s no variability. No dispersion of that stress over different tissues or joints in the system.

Tension isn’t the answer to everything. Sometimes we need relaxation. We need length instead of tightness and compression. Yielding instead of resisting. Think of it as yin and yang.

Let me give an example, with 2 movements to illustrate.

The first movement is a deadlift, where you are hinging at the hips to lift a heavy load. Could be a barbell, could be a box, doesn’t matter. You’re producing force and power to lift something heavy, and this requires a tension strategy. If you’re unable to brace properly, to create stiffness around your spine and leverage big muscle groups, you won’t have an efficient lift and you will probably feel pain (especially if you’re already in pain). Our preferred strategy here is tension, because it serves our ultimate goal of producing force.

The second movement is bending over, like you would in everyday life. It could be to tie your shoes, pick up a pencil off the ground, or scratch an itch on your leg. In contrast to the deadlift, the load in this situation is light. This time, our strategy is more relaxation-based. Not relaxation to the point that you’re willowing in the wind like a limp noodle, but relaxed in the sense that you’re not aggressively bracing and bearing down to create tension. Your spine, ribs and hips are moving, flexing, rotating, to create the shape and movement needed to reach what you’re bending towards.

Both strategies are great, and both are necessary. The context in which they would ideally be deployed just differs.

Where a lot of people with back pain run into trouble is that they don’t have a relaxation strategy to deploy. Heavy load, light load, doesn’t matter—their default is tension. They could literally be bending over to pick up a sock, and they’d approach it in the same way that they would a 40lb kettlebell.

This is why a huge part of what I work on with all my back pain clients is creating movement variability and options at the spine, ribs and hips. This will be very gradual to start with for many, to give the body and nervous system a chance to adapt and bring its guard down, but ultimately the goal is to have the ability to deploy both tension and relaxation strategies, in appropriate contexts.

I should probably end the article here, but let’s make a bit of a stretch and take it further.

I’d argue that this same model can be applied to mental tasks in daily life as well. Oftentimes we default to muscling our way through things. We have a deadline, or a project to complete, and at a certain point we run into a brick wall. No matter how hard we try and how much we grind, we can’t get what we want.

Maybe what we need is a different strategy. Relaxation, instead of tension. Trying a different option and iterating, instead of bull-headedly (not a word, but it should be) trying the same thing over and over again when it’s not working in our favor.

In both situations, mental and physical, building a more diverse toolbox, with different strategies, allows you to tackle different contexts and problems effectively. You’re using the demands of a task to dictate which strategy you use, not forcing the strategies you have available on a task (with no regard for what the task actually demands).

I’ve run out of things to say here, so that’s all for now. But hopefully this gives you some food for thought. If you have feedback or thoughts on the matter, DM me on Instagram or send me an email. I’d love to hear from you!