Muscular Facilitation (PNF)

The human body is a self-contained system with the features of regulatory mechanism. The brain and the spinal cords have a great control over the nervous system, to fire when a stimulus is required, the medulla magnify efforts of the body organ when at rest or in times of danger and frightening, the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system for the involuntary system to regulate and control nervous impulse from the cerebral trunk and the bone marrow. However the body has an internal regulatory system to ensure smooth and safe movements too, so that neither two muscles contract at the same time which may indulge injury or strain. Three internal regulatory mechanism exist within the body to ensure safe and smooth movements are achieved within
Treatment involved reeducation of developmental movements and postures. This approach helped patients become more efficient in their movements and activities of daily living. PNF is a type of passive stretching that uses alternating contraction and relaxation movements to increase flexibility. The reason why PNF is better than other forms of flexibility training is that it helps the body’s muscular inhibition. For the elite performer, the most useful type of PNF is the CRAC (contract-relax, antagonist-contract) technique, which uses isometric muscle contractions as its basis. PNF stretching is best performed with a partner. Muscle recruitment is enhanced through the use of the appropriate reflex and proprioceptive stimuli. The efficient recruitment of motor patterns involves the use of the following PNF
Each MSA consists of three modified muscle fibers that lie within the normal muscle fibers, and are supplied with both motor and sensory neurones. By sending nerve impulses to the brain about changes in muscle length, they allow the brain to ‘know’ how contracted a muscle fiber is. They are also involved in the anticipation of how much of a contraction the muscle is going to need. Whenever a muscle is stretched or shortened, the pull felt by the muscle fibers is transferred to the MSA and it is similarly stretched or shortened. Whenever muscles change their length, the sensory nerve endings within the muscle spindle report the changing condition of that muscle back to the brain, so that appropriate adjustments in muscle contraction can be made.
Muscle spindles are also involved in the anticipation of how much strength a muscle is going to need for a certain action (muscle loading). The muscle pre-sets the tension within itself, based on information held in memory. The MSA can then adjust the tension required, by feeding back sensory information to the brain and causing immediate