The Clinical Power of the Spiral Line
In this episode of the Unreal Results podcast, I discuss the spiral fascial line not as something to memorize, but as a lens to better understand human movement and efficiency.
You’ll hear how the spiral line influenced the name MovementREV, how it shows up repeatedly in LTAP® findings, and why freeing up rotation can transform gait, balance, and efficiency.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
What the spiral line actually connects and why it matters clinically
How the spiral line supports gait and whole-body efficiency
How pelvic floor and diaphragm stiffness limit spiral expression
I hope this episode helps you recognize the spiral line and rotation as a foundational movement pattern, one that can clarify recurring clinical findings and elevate your outcomes with greater precision.
Resources & Links Mentioned In This Episode:
Episode 8: Unlocking The Fibula
Episode 26: Sartorius B.I.G.
Episode 44: Using Weight Shifting To Improve Movement Patterns
Episode 73: The Sartorius: It's More Powerful Than You Think
Episode 145: 5 Treatment Areas That Consistently Improve Outcomes
Learn the LTAP® In-Person in one of my upcoming courses
Considering the viscera as a source of musculoskeletal pain and dysfunction is a great way to ensure a more true whole body approach to care, however it can be a bit overwhelming on where to start, which is exactly why I created the Visceral Referral Cheat Sheet. This FREE download will help you to learn the most common visceral referral patterns affecting the musculoskeletal system. Download it at www.unrealresultspod.com
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Anna Hartman: Hey there and welcome. I'm Anna Hartman and this is Unreal Results, a podcast where I help you get better outcomes and gain the confidence that you can help anyone, even the most complex cases. Join me as I teach about the influence of the visceral organs in the nervous system on movement, pain and injuries, all while shifting the paradigm of what whole body assessment and treatment really looks like.
I'm glad you're here. Let's dive in.
Hello, hello and welcome back to another episode of the Unreal Results Podcast. I, um, was like trying to decide what to talk about today because I, uh. Like didn't have anything on my mind. And luckily I have a little like, um, note on my phone of like podcast ideas and one of them, um, was about the spiral line.
I was like, oh, that's actually perfect, because I recently just, um, shared in a email to my email list about like the origin of, um, my business name. Movement Rev, and it has a lot to do with the spiral line as well as a couple episodes ago I talked about like the most common treatment spots and I was listing off the most common treatment spots.
I was realizing like, wow, these are all like really significant parts of this, of the spiral line. The spiral fascial line. And so, uh, yeah, so obviously it's been on my mind a lot and I've been talking about it without talking about it. So I was like, you know what? Let's have this episode to be about that.
Now. Um, with that said, I'm not going like, you know, you can do a whole workshop on the spiral line. So, um, I'm gonna kind of talk about it in terms of like how I see it. Why it matters, why I tend to focus on it, why I think it's a big, um, game changer. Um, and one of those things that like you need to be aware of and like, it helps, I think it helps really like map and understand the body.
Um, so where do I wanna introduce this? Well, let's talk about the Movement Rev name. Um, 'cause like I said, that's like part of what made me even think about it in the first place. So, um, recently the medical assistant for the physician that I work with, she was like, Hey, I sent them sweatshirts. And, um, she's like, where did the name Movement Rev come from?
And so I was like, oh, that's a good question. Long ago, no. So, um, when I started my business, I started my business on. Well, it was intentionally, but like unintentionally, like basically I quit my previous job without necessarily a plan for the next step. I quit my previous job because I, I knew that I needed a break, number one.
Number two, I knew that I wanted to continue to work with my athletes, but I didn't want to be locked into a methodology or approach that I didn't believe in. And um, so. I also knew that, um, because of that and because I had managed people, like I didn't wanna, like, I wanted to do my own thing. And so I knew I was gonna do my own business and then I wanted my business name to represent something.
And I had also was very well aware from a business standpoint that like. You know, not that I one day want to sell my company, but like from a business standpoint, if you ever want to sell your company, it's really helpful to not have your company be you in your name. And so I knew I didn't want it to be my name.
Um, even though at the time when I started my business, it was just like literally me working with my athletes. Um. But I was just like, you know, it seems like a good idea to prepare for that for the future, even if it never comes to fruition. And, um, so. I started asking my other colleagues that worked with me, the athletes that worked with me, you know, I wasn't asking them like, what's the name of my business should be.
I was basically asking them like, when you think of working with me or you, when you think of what I bring to the table, or when you think of what I teach, like what stands out to you? And one of the things one of my colleagues said, um, that I was like, really resonated. Was he said small change, small. What did he say?
Like small treatments or small change or small. Small, something big changes like, and I was like, oh, that's, I really like that. And um, along with that, at the time I was like literally really obsessed with the spiral line and rotational movement patterns and how and movement in general. I was, it was 2013 and I was coming off of four years of a journey post back surgery.
And, and that journey, post back surgery led me down, um, a lot of more movement based education. Than I had ever gotten before. And when I say movement based education, I mean it's all, of course exercise is movement based education. Orthopedics is movement based education. But what I mean by movement, I mean like artistic movement.
I, that is when I learned, or like, no, not just learned, but really dove into the world of Pilates is I dove in the world of gyro kinetics. Kinesis, um, dance. Well, I wouldn't say I dove into the world of dance, but I started learning from people in the world of dance. Started looking at movement more from a whole organism standpoint than just like exercises, if that makes sense.
And really also in that time period, not only understanding movement better, but understanding how to cue movement better and cue the nervous system better. It's also when I like really was like learning a lot more about fascia and the fascial connections and um, just, you know, all the things that help us not only maintain our shape.
But transfer energy throughout our shape efficiently and efficiently move. And so I had, um, I was like doing a sort of mentorship with Elizabeth Larkam and we were, you know, kind of doing practical, put the fascial fitness. Things into play like practically and like create cases and see what was happening.
And, and I was, um, noticing that whenever I, with my patients and with a, um, one of my colleagues, Craig Friedman, who was like my guinea pig for this, um, I. Was like really doing a lot of focusing on movements of the spiral line. And it was just so cool to see when you focus on spiral line movements, how it cleaned up all movement patterns, but most notably people's gait.
And it makes sense, right? Because our spiral fascial line, um. Or not even our spiral fascial line, just rotation in general. The rot rotational movement is what makes us uniquely human. Our bipedal rotational movement is what makes us human. Our ability to like use our upper extremity to throw something is what makes us uniquely human.
And the ability to throw something overhand is us exploiting our rotational capabilities and from an evolutionary standpoint. That's what I mean by uniquely human. Our bones and our structure has evolved from other animals to, to create that efficient rotational structure. And, um, I, that's what I would notice.
Like, I, like people would come to me for like back pain, knee pain, ankle pain, and if I focused on, um. Supporting their spiral line, like their mobility improved, their pain improved, their mobility across the board, improved their movement efficiency. The, the quickness of which they walked, the pace at which they walked, the connection to their core improved their weight shifting on their body throughout movements, like it just saw so many things improve.
And so I was literally obsessed with the spiral line and so. At the time, I was like, you know, anybody who worked with me from a rehab standpoint or a exercise standpoint, we were doing like rotational stuff. And, um, which is kind of like a full circle moment too, because athletes performance now exos, um, one of the things that made athletes performance stick out very early on in the industry.
One, looking at the industry from a performance standpoint instead of like a bodybuilding standpoint, and then two, incorporating more functional, quote unquote functional movement. And when it came down to it, what really what we really exploited with functional movement was, you know, from, from some of the first coaches who were, who were coaching propulsive rotation.
To every athlete, not just athletes that needed propulsive rotation for their sport. Not just baseball players, not just kickers, you know, like, you know what I mean? Like propulsive rotation was a fundamental movement pattern we felt that everyone needed to master and improve upon. And so, you know, back then.
That was like, unheard of training outside of the, you know, sagittal plane and whatever other plane that is, you know, like flexion extension and side bending, like training out of those was very abnormal. And so, you know, introducing this transverse plane, this, this, this rotational movement was like. A big game changer.
And then when I really even leaned to that further, when I started learning more about fascia and the anatomy trains fascial lines, then I was just like, well, I really did see the power of when you introduce rotation. How much it helps just everything. And then too, like when you start learning other modes, like, you know, when I started learning more about embryology and evolution evolutionary biology, but then also like, um, developmental kinesiology, it's like, yeah, this is what we see in babies too.
Right? In order, in order for them to start moving, they need to master rolling. Bipedal movements like crawling, which is a combination of things too, right? So, um, it's just really cool to see how this pattern comes out in things. And so, um, I continue to be obsessed with the spiral line and, um, so yeah, so going back to how this like land the plane on it, going back to how this relates to Movement Rev, um, the name, so.
When my friend said big changes, small interventions, let's say big changes. Um, I was like, oh, I like that. That is what, like how can I combine movement and change? 'cause I was like, that is what I'm doing. I'm changing people's movement, but like, how can I make that into like something that sounds cool? And so then I was like, um.
I was like, how does spiral work in, I don't really know if I want spiral in the name and I don't even know if I want movement in the name. Um, I either like was really gung-ho on movement in the name or not at all. And um, so I went to the thesaurus as one does, and I wrote in Change and the Thesaurus, and one of the words that came out was Revolution.
And I was like, Ooh, I like that because Revolution. Yes. can be talking about change, but a revolution also like is circular or spiral. And I was like, it's rotation. And so I was like, Ooh, I like this. Like movement. A movement, revolution. And I was trying to figure out too, like even like a way to incorporate my initials into the name of the company.
So I was like, ah, movement, revelation, like, ah, movement, revelation and I, movement revolution. And I was like doing all the things. And when we were brainstorming on this, it was literally the day after I left Exos and my friends were in town, like my best friends from college, and we were drinking. At the pool on a sunny day in Arizona.
It was my best friend's from college and my good friend, um, Sue, and we were just, you know. Enjoying the life of retirement. Um, because when I did quit, part of me was like, I had just lost my mom and I, you know, when she got diagnosed with cancer, um, it was like right at the beginning of her retirement and it was like so sad to see her work so hard her whole life.
And then she retires and she has like all these dreams and plans of like traveling and doing all the things that she's always wanted to do now that she has the money to do them, and then she gets sick and can't do anything. And so after she died and um, I knew I needed a break to take care of myself, I was just like, let's, let's, uh.
Let's live her retirement. So anyways, during retirement in the pool, we were doing this like, let's name my business. And then of course drinking led to us purchasing a bunch of us, me, me, purchasing different domain main names based on a like movement revolution. And so, um, one of the domains was Movement Rev. Movement revolution was actually not available. So I had all these sort of like renditions of Movement Rev. Movement Rev was available. I told the baseball player that I was traveling with at at the time, Jacoby Ellsbury. He was like my main, one of my main clients and good friend. I'd worked with him for many years and I was telling him and he was like, Anna, I actually really like Movement Rev, like drop the revolution.
I like Movement Rev and like think of all the other words. That start with REV, that could represent what you're doing. And then so we, I went to the dictionary and we listed out all the words that related to movement, rev. And I was like, Ooh, I really like this because this incorporates like more of what I'm doing.
Not just the spirals, not just the movement, not just movement. Creating change. And so that's how Movement Rev was born. And um, that's why the tagline, revitalize, reveal, um, rev up exists as well. Um. So that's the backstory. Uh, so now let's now 15 minutes later, let's actually talk about the spiral line. So the spiral line that is just the name of the anatomy that Thomas Myers, um, has developed on his Anatomy Trains. And the anatomy trains is just a way to look at the myofascial system and its con continuity or connectiveness. In the spiral line, he calls the parasite line because the spiral line incorporates muscles and fascia from various different other anatomy trains or fascial lines.
And so, um. It crosses over, but as you can imagine, it creates rotation balances. The arches facilitates rotational bipedal movement and just maintains balance of the whole system. And, um, it basically, his, his description of the spiral line, it basically, um, is a, um, double spiral. That crosses all the planes of the body.
And I'm gonna kind of like in general tell you what the, um, muscles are from this, but it basically, originally it's on the occipital ridge of the mastoid process in the cranium and then wraps around the upper neck. Um, continues to the, um, splenius capitus and CBAs, the lower cervical and upper thoracic spine processes, the rhomboids major and minor, the medial border of the scapula.
The serratus anterior the lateral ribs, external oblique, the abdominal aponeurosis, the linear alba, the internal oblique, the iliac crest. The ASIS, the tensor fascia latae, the IT band, the lateral tibial condyle, the tibials anterior, the first metatarsal base, the peroneus longus, the fibular head, the biceps femoris, the ischial tuberosity, the sacrotuberous ligament, the sacrum, the sacro lumbar fascia, the erector spine, and then back to the occipital ridge.
So it wraps around the body. It basically goes from one side of the head across. Wraps around the front of the trunk to the opposite pelvis, down one side of the leg under the arch up back up the leg, and connects back into the, um, pelvis up the erector spinae, spining into the opposite neck. So especially, especially the lower part of the spiral line is this connection is like so fundamental. This tibialis anterior to peroneous longus connection to the biceps, the like biceps femoris.. The long head and the short head. The short head to the adductor mangus, to the ischial tuberosity to the SI joint, ligaments to the spine. To the TFL, to the IT band. Those connections are big ones and I end up treating them a ton.
And then just freeing up the trunk to rotate is like fundamentally, again, what makes us really human. And when we look at, um, when we look at when the body is in a threatened position, um, especially when organs or the nervous system are, are involved, the body's diaphragms in the trunk get very stiff. And when the diaphragms in the trunk are stiff, the pelvic floor, the respiratory diaphragms, um, they limit quite a bit rotation.
And so again, when we have this full free rotation of the spiral line, it indicates a very open to move a very free freedom to move and balanced movement of the whole body. And so I'll make sure Joe, um, links in the show notes the episode from a couple weeks ago about the five common spots as well as the unlocking the fibula episode and the Sartorious episode, because these, though the sartorious technically isn't, um.
I don't think part of the spiral line. It, it has a very unique, um, spiraling ability for the lower legs and I think really supports the spiral line quite a bit. And that's when you look at the spiral line from their perspective, a different perspective, um, from Philip Beach. So Philip Beach and his book Muscle and Meridians describes the different contractile fields or how the body is connected.
What I love about Philip's work is he, he goes beyond just the myofascia. He connects it to the organs and everything too. And he calls the spiral line, the helical contractile field, and it is combined with the legs, the limbs, as amplifiers of the helical field. So just like we see in like rotational, like ice skating or like twisting, when we want to speed something up, we can manipulate our arms and legs to do it, but the actual rotation comes from the trunk..
He says, from a contractile field perspective, humans have uniquely exploited the potential of helical biodynamics. Our bipedal gait patterns employ it. Our ability to project force that dis distance employs it and our brains complexity employs helical biodynamics to network our hemispheres together in a manner that no other animal has approached.
So, um. When we start to take in consideration these components of the helical field, we start to see how it connects with our eye movements, um, and our ability to dissociate those movements as well as connects via the pelvic floor being such an important piece of it, and also brings in the spinal engine mechanics and the um.
The concept of weight shifting, which I did a whole episode on this, that I'll have Joe link in the show notes too about weight shifting. But it really is us expressing this continuity of the heli goal field in this limb field, um, in maintaining and improving, optimizing this bipedal rotational pattern that we have.
And much like Thomas Meyers describes in anatomy trains. Philip Beach describes in the helical field, um, that the helical field takes from the dorsal ventral and the lateral fields quite a bit too. So it is, it is that parasite line that involves kind of like the whole bodiness, that the helical field arises from our ability to flex and extends, side bend, all of those motions, especially evolutionary, is what has allowed us to be rotators.
So, um, again, I don't want to like turn this podcast into like, necessarily like, let me describe all the parts of the helical contractile field, or the spiral line, but I want you to be aware of this anatomical pieces of it. So because it helps to sometimes inform your patterns. Now the el, what's cool about like the last, um, podcast episode that I shared about the common treatment spots, the cool thing is that the locator test assessment protocol, it is taking me to these key spots.
And so sometimes I see the pattern emerge from the body directing me. To all these spots, and then because I'm aware of the anatomy of these patterns that are described by these other professionals, then I'm like, oh, I might go searching for something else. Right? So if I am taken to somebody's lower extremity, the tibialis anterior, the peroneus longus,, the TFL.
I'm gonna go look at that adductor magnus. I'm gonna go look at the obliques and like diaphragm. I'm gonna check some trunk rotation. I might even go up to the rhomboids and, and the scapula and see how the scapula mobility is too. So it's not that you have to memorize it, it's, it's important to know that that, that there is that pattern there.
And to understand like just how uniquely human it makes. So definitely check out those other episodes and kind of like see big picture because I think on its own, just knowing this is not necessarily like the key. It's just like recognizing when there's patterns like this and like how they connect back to the like fundamentals, the evolutionary biology, the embryology, the developmental patterns, that kind of thing. And then when you are feeling lost with someone, if you're getting pulled to these spots, you can start exploring the rest of those lines and see if you're missing something. So hopefully that makes sense and you enjoy the little story to go with it, and I'll see you next time.