Jane Sato thought she understood abdominal muscles. For her first 10 years teaching Pilates and yoga in New York City, she taught her students to draw their belly button toward their spine to strengthen their core.
But when I saw what the actual abdominal muscles looked like during a human anatomy workshop at Mount Sinai Hospital, I realized that the layers of tissue crisscross, and the muscles run from front to front and up and down. I could see that they were doing it. As informative as possible.
“This photo has so much more meaning,” she said. “When you actually see it, the cue changes automatically.”
Now, instead of instructing her clients to inhale their belly buttons, she tells them to pull all the muscles in their core together, “like a hug.”
Sato is one of the thousands of fitness professionals who have sought out cadaveric workshops to gain a deeper understanding of anatomy and improve their teaching skills. Over the past 20 years, at least a dozen anatomy courses (most of them outside the traditional medical system) have been launched for people like yoga teachers, massage therapists and Peloton trainers.
Most of these professions require anatomy training for certification, which varies widely and typically relies on two-dimensional photographs, plastic models, and even anatomy coloring books. This can lead to misunderstandings about how the body works.
“They want more information,” said Rachel Podjednik, chair of exercise science at Norwich University and a research fellow at the Harvard Institute for Lifestyle Medicine. But in many cases, she added, “they don’t know who to turn to.” How about “giving the experts as much knowledge as possible”?
intuitive experience
Experts say you can’t fully understand the value of autopsies until you participate in one. So on a sunny Saturday in October, my morbid curiosity led me to a lab called Experience Anatomy, located in an office park near the airport in Charlotte, North Carolina. I was both excited and nervous, acutely aware that I might not be able to miss what I observed.
The two-day autopsy was led by Fauna Moore, an Ashtanga yoga instructor and massage therapist. After she was disappointed in the anatomy instruction she received during her training, she attended and studied dissection and then began teaching her anatomy. (While no special qualifications are required to supervise the dissection of her cadavers, she has spent years shadowing experienced anatomists.)
After a short orientation, five students from the course gathered around the corpse, scalpels in hand. While some courses for fitness professionals teach using cadavers (or body parts) that have already been dissected, in this workshop students will be dissecting a complete cadaver themselves. Masu. In both cases, the donor or next of kin is donating the body specifically for scientific learning, but it is not necessarily known whether the body will be used to educate medical students, physical therapists, or yoga instructors. .
As everyone stood in silence under the glare of fluorescent lights, Moore peeled off the white sheet that had covered her body. Dissecting a human being can be an emotional and uncomfortable experience, so she suggested that students name the 75-year-old woman’s corpse after her to appreciate her humanity. said.
The group was decided on “Betty”.
Some argue that new technologies such as three-dimensional virtual software have made it easier to study the human body, eliminating the need for cadavers. But medical students still say seeing, touching and holding real human tissue is far more useful than photos or models. And that leads to better, more compassionate care, said Jeffrey Reitman, who has directed Mount Sinai’s anatomy lab for more than 40 years.
“It’s a very humbling experience,” he said. “Once you hold a heart in your hand, you will never be the same again.”
In the dissection room, Ms. Moore demonstrated the correct way to hold a scalpel (“like a pen”). Then she made her first cut on her upper thigh, delicately working her one layer at a time: first the skin, then the sticky white fascia, then the bright yellow fat, and so on. I showed you how to pull it back. The bodies had been treated with “soft embalming,” but it soon became clear that this technique used very little formaldehyde and preserved color and texture, making things very dirty.
“I don’t know where to start,” said one massage therapist student.
“You can’t mess it up,” Moore replied. “If you go a little too far, you can start over somewhere else.”
A new perspective on the body
For massage therapists, pilates, yogis, strength trainers and others who actually work with clients, exposure to real tissue provides unparalleled learning, says Dr. M., who co-founded the Mount Sinai Anatomy Course with her in 2006. said Pilates instructor Dr. Carrie McCulloch. Pilates instructor and former dancer Matt McCulloch’s husband, and Dr. Reitman.
“They’re working with real human bodies, and we should learn from real human bodies,” Dr McCulloch said.
Course prices range from approximately $1,200 for a weekend workshop to more than $4,500 for a six-day program. Anna Kaiser, who owns two popular cardio dance studios in New York and attended her course at Mount Sinai in 2012, is equipped to support specific postpartum clients thanks to this class. He said he felt that there was.
Kaiser was able to study the bodies of donors who had undergone C-sections, and was struck by how many layers of abdominal muscle had been severed. This deepened her awareness of the seriousness of recovery and the work required to rebuild core strength layer by layer.
Now, “I can imagine what it’s like,” she said. She said, “It’s completely different from looking at photos in a book.”
When I returned to the dissection table, the students had begun to exercise their muscles. “It’s a lot more delicate than I imagined,” one person commented, pulling apart the four long muscles that make up the quadriceps.
In contrast, they focused on the strength of the fascia, or connective tissue, that surrounds every muscle. “It’s very flexible, but very durable,” said one student. “You have to put a little pressure on the scalpel.”
One student handed me an iliotibial band (or iliotibial band). It ran from Betty’s hips to her knees, and was strong yet surprisingly light and thin, like duct tape. I’ve been actively foam rolling for years, but I had envisioned something thicker and more knotty. I made a mental note to go more easily.
in case of corpse
Over the past 20 years, as research on the health benefits of exercise has expanded, more primary care physicians are recommending exercise to their patients, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. As a result, many fitness professionals now find themselves working with clients with complex conditions, from knee replacements to high blood pressure.
“Health, fitness, treatment and physicians are part of a continuum,” Dr. Reitman said. “Fitness professionals often see people before they go to the doctor.”
McCulloch, who has co-authored a book on anatomy, said that after taking an anatomy course, “instructors often realize that some of the choices they were making for their clients were not well-informed.” There is,” he said. For example, after seeing the bones of an osteoporotic cadaver, some students realized that the bending and twisting in training might be too intense for the client’s fragile body.
Natasha Standley, a massage therapist and former step aerobics instructor in Moore’s course, later said she learned what was in her hands and what was not when working with clients. told me.
“Some of the muscles are really, really deep,” she says. This dissection revealed that despite what the diagram suggests, the psoas and quadratus lumborum (QL) muscles are inaccessible, which can cause back, pelvis, and hip pain. Rather than trying to reach them through massage, she said she plans to incorporate more stretching into her work.
After the students finished their lunch (most choosing vegetarian), they returned to their stations at the dissecting table. Moore and her research assistant turned Betty over and played music to energize the group. Everyone grabbed scalpels as REM’s “Losing My Religion” started playing from the overhead speakers.
The day went well, but then I was upset. When I arrived at the airport that night, I didn’t see any travelers, just a dead body walking.
But over time, I came to understand the intricacies and interconnections of every muscle, tendon, and bone. By spending time with a body that will never be able to move again, I was able to reaffirm my own body’s ability to move. When I got home, I couldn’t wait to go for a run.
