About RIO Method
Everyone knows their muscles must work for their body to move. Most people also know that muscles don’t work one-by-one but coordinate and work together as a team. This Muscle Teamwork (MT) is organized by the brain. MT depends on highly specific feedback from muscles and joints, from the eyes and inner ears, and from various parts of the brain itself. The brain instantaneously compiles this feedback and sends signals back to the muscles to hold your posture and move your body.
Muscle Teamwork has been around for as long as animals with muscles have lived on our planet. Your personal MT began developing the moment you began to move in your mother’s womb. It plays a central role in every move you make, even while you sleep. Yet MT is still largely overlooked — both in medicine and sports — either as a cause for common muscle and joint problems or as a way to resolve them.
Why is that?
Scientists know that Muscle Teamwork is not inborn. It must be learned, like language. Until very recently, professionals assumed that MT was learned automatically and correctly. Now we recognize that just as with language skills, MT may be learned with gaps, inconsistencies, and errors. In an otherwise normal adult, MT can vary from poor to excellent depending on which movement task is being evaluated.
In biomechanics, researchers have found that faulty Muscle Teamwork underlies many common joint and muscle problems. Poor MT can cause stiff and sore muscles, bad posture, balance problems, wear-and-tear injuries, limited sports performance, and a failure to recover from soft-tissue injuries that should otherwise heal. On the bright side, MT can be readily evaluated and permanently upgraded regardless of age.
If you want to stay active in life you can’t avoid putting demands on your muscles. What you can do is improve your Muscle Teamwork so your muscles work smarter — not harder — all day, in every move you make.