Sur les théories actuelles concernant le retour sanguin :

• Les lois mathématiques sur la dynamique des fluides est en contradiction avec les théories classiques sur le retour veineux.
• Si le coeur s'arrete le sang continue a couler dans les veines pendant quelques instant (vaisseaux profond).
• Si l'on coupe les veines superficielles de l'avant bras le sang ne coule qu'après un certain laps de temps.

Sur les autres théories ostéopathique concernant les théories fasciales et crânienne :

• Les théories ostéopatiques concernant un mrp d'origine intracrânienne sont incompatible avec la réalité concernant les pressions locales.
• Les théories ostéopatiques concernant un mrp d'origine tissulaire ne sont pas étayées contrairement

Sur les théories actuellement admises concernant l'élaboration du tonus musculaire :

This treatment usually results in immediate and complete sedation of the heaviness sensation. Several sessions are needed, one a week at first, then one every fortnight and finally one a month. This is to ensure that the vascular benefits last in the long run. The effect of the cure is transitory at first, but it adds up from one session to another. Patients can then come back only once every two to six months depending on the season (summer heat) and on how healthy their life style is. The techniques are particularly gentle and used in the context of a regular and global osteopathy session. They have been submitted to statistical evaluation and have been found to be the most efficient treatment known today in stopping the heaviness sensation and ensuring long-lasting benefits.

The whole field of osteopathy is globaly improved.
Integrating PMM’s laws into Osteopathy as well as designing new techniques enable therapists to understand various symptoms linked to muscle tonus disorders in relation to PMM. Symptoms affecting veinous and lymph circulation naturally derive from them.
These include:


- heavy legs syndrome
- restless legs syndrome
- Functional lymphedema
- Fibromyalgia
- cramps
- night cramps
- muscle soreness
- Raynaud’s syndrome
- Achilles tendinitis

Nous vous proposons quelques tests vous permettant de vérifier la réalité de la MMP ainsi que quelques-unes de ses caractéristiques. Nous avons choisi les tests les plus simples et les plus faciles à réaliser. La palpation de la MMP demande parfois une grande attention de la part de celui qui teste, notamment au moment de la prise de contact avec le muscle ; après un délai de quelques secondes la perception devient plus évidente. Nous vous conseillons tout d'abord de visiter les pages "Description de la MMP" et "Palpation de la MMP" de notre site.

Ces tests pourront nécessiter certains accessoires, notamment un chronomètre, mais seront également utiles : des aimants, des aiguilles d'acupuncture, du chaud (moxa), du froid (glace, spray cryogène).

Venous circulation
Circulation of fluids
venous Blood, C.R.L, lymph


>> State of biological and physiological knowledge regarding the blood circulation back to the heart (venous circulation):


- Given the veins' limited number and the thinness of their smooth muscular fibers, the venomotor action when it occurs is itself very limited.

- Veins are equipped with one-way valves preventing the blood from "ebbing".

- When a vein is tied, pressure increases significantly beyond the usual norm (up to the level of arterial pressure).
- Which ever part of the venous system is explored, the pressure ensuring the blood flow is low, inferior to 15 mm Hg (pressure of the blood coming out of a capillary).

- Venous pressure observed in a laying subject.

- The pressure in the venules is the result of that in the arterioles transmitted through the alveolo-capillary system.
- In an experiment conducted on a dog given curare in order to stop the skeletal striated muscles from contracting, whose thorax has been open to stop thoracic depression and whose pulmonary ventilation is artificially aided, there will be no muscle contraction. Nevertheless, the back flow is not impaired and even continues a few seconds after the heart stops, through stimulation of the pneumogastric nerve. This is usually explained by the elasticity of the arteries, arterioles and capillaries which route the blood towards the veins.

-The intrathoracic depression is

–   7 cm H2O upon exhalation
– 14 cm H2O upon deep inhalation
– 20 cm H2O upon forced inhalation.

- Contractions of skeletal muscles are considered to help venous circulation. Great pressure between the muscle fibers compress the blood vessels emptying them. Skeletal muscle exert their pressure not only on capillaries and venules, but also on bigger veins travelling between the muscles fascicles.

- Blood pressure in the arteries perpendicularly crushes the veins emptying them. The arterial systolic expansion during the heart systole is deemed incidental.
- In a standing man, pressures reaches 90 to 120 cm d’H2O in the internal saphenous vein level with the malleolus, in spite of the valves.

·         Veins are equipped with one-way valves which prevent the blood from flowing backward ; they make up an anti-ebbing system. Classical theory has that the veins are flatten when muscles contract, thus expelling the blood towards the heart. They fill up again when the muscles relax.



Valvule fermée : closed valve.
Sang propulsé vers le cœur par compression : blood propelled towards the heart by compression.
Valve ouverte : open valve.
Veine comprimée par le muscle contracté : vein compressed by the contracted muscle.
Contraction : contraction.
Flux rétrograde refoulé par la valvule fermée : backward flow stopped by the closed valve.

Diagram 1 - Contraction of the twin muscles expels the venous blood upward, the valves act as a anti-backflow system. Diagram adapted from Moore-Dalley (4)

Since Kabbat and Mézières, the muscle chains principles have significantly evolved. We'll focus on two notions which may seem in complete opposition: one from the field of objectivity and influenced by the very precise work of Léopold BUSQUET; the other from the field of subjectivity and influenced by the intuition of Godelieve DENYS-STRUYF.

We are faced with two different scientific approaches:
one dealing with what is rigorously known.
one dealing in probabilities.

Thanks to the second option, Godelieve Denys-Struyf established the link between muscle chains and Chinese medicine.

How could an osteopath not sense the link between muscle chains and acupuncture meridians?

They are very difficult to superimpose and a perfect match between the two conceptions does not yet emerge. Yet it is not obscure anymore. PMM has already answered a lot of questions and will keep opening doors. PMM, muscle chains, the relation between soma and psyche lead the way to a holistic osteopathy. We will reach beyond the frontier between psyche and soma, closing in on the origins of symptoms.


If we look into two types of pathology showing:
* Functional lesions (the more numerous).
* Irreversible cell lesions

Energetic medicines (Osteopathic and Chinese) are best equipped to evaluate the symptom's mechanisms and their resolution at somatic level.

Progressively, they will become the first choice medicines in case of "functional lesions ", and an excellent counterpart for adaptive medicinal treatments in case of irreversible cell lesions.

To this day one question has remained unanswered:

How does venous blood find its way back to the heart when there is theoretically no muscle activity?

In case of paraplegia, coma or during sleep, muscle activity is supposedly almost nil and the force of aspiration of the right auricle is negligible.

Yet the blood does go back to the heart…

In a flaccid paraplegic (severed nerves) maintained in a standing position, how can the blood going through the feet's capillaries go back up to the groin?

This is the description of the three phases of the PMM:

• adaptation and filling-up phase
• contraction and emptying phase
• filling-up phase

1. Adaptation phase

During this phase, the muscle increases its blood mass to a threshold point which will trigger the contraction phase.
This trigger point is sensitive to changes in the pressure (particularly during palpation), and in the position of the tested limb (lifting or lowering the arm to test a brachial biceps)
This phase can last more than 10 seconds depending on how long the muscle takes to fill up and adapt to the surrounding tensions before reaching the ad hoc trigger point. During this phase, the muscle swells along all three planes of space.

2. Contraction phase

This is when the blood is pumped out of the muscle. The muscle contracts: it shortens, its volume and the circumference of its fleshy part decrease. This phase lasts about 3 seconds. The shortening of the muscle's fleshy part indicates muscle contraction. Note that, paradoxically, the diameter of the muscle also shortens.

3. Filling-up phase

Back to the filling-up phase but without the adaptation phase, providing the external vectors do not vary. This phase lasts about three seconds.

The first and third phases are really only one but we have divided it in two so as to be more precise.

This is a presentation of a few PMM’s neurological characteristics. They are essential to the understanding of how it functions and will allow you to get a better grip on how important such a system is. They guide us and validate our choice of the neuromuscular spindle and the Golgi organs as the captors of one of the most sensitive functional entity. To highlight the transmission modes of data linked to the PMM, we will use the following tools :

1. North and south poles of magnets which increase or decrease the PMM’s frequency (depending on the tested zone) in a healthy subject.
2. The "Ataëv" method, used by the author of the same name, demonstrated the influence of the subject’s will on muscle activity. It showed that when a tetraplegic was asked to contract a muscle he or she no longer had control of, the temperature of the muscle went up.
3. Full-lungs and empty-lungs retentions in a healthy subject will progressively freeze the PMM’s frequencies.

You will find below a concise comparative chart of the effect of various lesions on the PMM’s frequencies.

We deal with retentions globally (full and empty-lungs) because, although they have different effects on the muscle groups, they indicate the same variations in rhythm.

The muscles tested with magnets are the main fléchisseurs of the tested limbs (brachial biceps or quadriceps). Values are inverted in the antagonist muscles.

The Ataëv techniques can be used for all muscles in the body.

PMM Frequency Apnea Magnets Ataëv south north Healthy subject Normal → 0 ↑ ↓ ↑ medullaire Lesion Normal → 0 ↑ ↓ ↑ Severed nerve Normal → 0 ↑ ↓ =

It is observed that :

1. Willing a muscle to contract influences the PMM in the case of a damaged spinal chord but not in the case of a severed nerve. Information is indeed transmitted through nerves but it can shunt one or several vertebral levels. This phenomenon can be explained either by motivity being carried out by several vertebral levels, or by the use of the ascending and descending pathways of the 1a fibers in the neuromuscular spindles thus crossing over the medullary lesion.
2. During apnea, the PMM stops even in case of a severed nerve, which looks like a mechanical transmission mode through stretching and relaxing of the muscles. Like the heart muscle, the PMM’s activity is semi autonomous, adjusted by the subcortical region (subthalamic nucleus?).
3. Local activity is influenced, even in the case of a nerve completely severed, by a magnet’s north and south poles. So there is a possibility to locally influence the frequencies of muscle contractions without using the nerves (local control).

It can therefore be inferred that the PMM is semi-autonomous, adaptable and controlled by superior nervous centers. Also it seeks to synchronize and adapt itself locally to the general and local circumstances.

We’ll take the brachial biceps as an example.

The patient is lying down and the practitioner seizes the fleshy part of the biceps between thumb and fingers.

– At first one won’t feel anything. Then gradually, one should feel their fingers spread apart for several seconds. It is important that the pressure exerted by the practitioner be light and as constant as possible*.

– Then, one should feel the volume of the muscle diminish for about 3 seconds, then again an increase in tension for about 3 seconds, so on and so forth. This phenomenon stops as soon as the patient mobilises his or her arm or contracts his or her muscle. It is also the case when the arm is passively mobilised.

Note that during the filling-up phase (dilatation of the muscle), the muscle swells transversally, but also longitudinally, and vice versa during the emptying phase (diminution of the volume of the muscle). The increase and decrease in volume happen on all three planes of space.
Also note that the volume of the muscle diminishes during contraction.

Only a seasoned therapist trained in « subtle » palpation can perceive this motility; one needs to have an « osteopathic » hand to feel such a change in tension or swelling of the muscle.


NB:

The difficult part of this palpation is in perceiving the first emptying phase.
*Any change in the tension or pressure exerted by the practitioner on the muscle, will disrupt the muscle contraction (cf. Afore mentioned instruction to keep the pressure as constant as possible).


For those not familiar with this type of palpation:


Have somebody lie on their back.
Sit next to them so as to face them (photo).
Put your hand on their thigh spreading your fingers so as to take on the shape of the limb, relax your hand and your whole body.
You will then progressively feel your fingers spread apart and tighten back in a rhythmical way. That is the manifestation of the PMM.

The rhythms of the PMM are sensitive to several types of external factors. This enabled us to design appropriate tests and initiate explanation for the influence of so called energetic medicines.


Factors bearing on the PMM:

heat (moxibution) :

•    It systematically slows down the rhythm of the PMM
•    It has a relaxing effect, but increases the risk of tendonitis
•    Local muscle tonicity is reduced


cold :

•    It systematically accelerate the rhythm of the PMM
•    It has a draining effect through local vascular and lymphatic acceleration
•    Local muscle tonicity is increased