Yesterday I listened to a podcast from Liberated Body about the Myth of Core Stability. Eyal Lederman, the doctor being interviewed offered up these thoughts (I’m paraphrasing a bit) that struck me as so simple and yet so profound:
There are no sub systems in the body. There is not a subsystem called core muscles. There are no muscle chains. They just don’t exist in human movement. The muscles aren’t organized into those kinds of categories. They are organized according to the task a person is performing. Every movement involves the muscles of the trunk. You don’t have a muscle in your body that is categorized as a stability muscle – and when we do categorize them that way we think they are carrying all the load.
This really struck me. Our whole body depends on all of its parts to do anything and our voices are no exception. Producing sound requires our whole body to work well. Our diaphragm doesn’t stabilize the voice. Our transverse abdominus doesn’t stabilize the voice. The cricothyroid and thyroarytenoid muscles don’t work alone or as an independent pair. The entire body is involved in standing, sitting and moving and therefore the entire body is involved in sound production.
Aristotle told us, “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”
If a voice isn’t working well, we do ourselves a disservice by reducing it down to just the voice box. Look at the rest of your body and you will find a solution. The shoulders, the neck, the trunk and breath, the pelvis, the legs, the feet. All. Of. Them.
I’m just going to leave this here. Let me know what your thoughts are.