The Lost Spiral
Restoring Rotational Intelligence to the Hips, Knees & Ankles
Introduction: What Happened to Spiral Movement?
Not so long ago—at least in terms of human evolution—our bodies were in conversation with the ground. We walked across varied terrain, barefoot or lightly protected. Our feet didn’t just support us; they listened. Every slope, bump, and texture triggered subtle adjustments: small spiraling articulations that rippled upward through the ankles, knees, hips, and spine.
This wasn’t something we thought about. It was the outcome of living in a world that required it.
Spiral movement wasn’t one-directional. It traveled upward from the foot, knee, and hip, and downward from the spine, sacrum, and pelvis. The pelvis sat at the intersection, receiving, redirecting, transmitting, and modulating energy.
But as environments flattened, so did our movement. We traded mossy forest floors for concrete. Flexible gait patterns for ninety-degree chairs. Feet capable of grasping and feeling were tucked into rigid shoes. And the complexity of our spiraling mechanics slowly faded.
In place of rotation, we began to brace. What was once adaptable and fluid became linear, simplified, and segmented. The result was not just aesthetic. It was structural.
We still live in these bodies. But fewer of us live through them.
We live longer than ever before, yet many of us are more sedentary, experience more chronic pain, and undergo more joint interventions than any previous generation. While our ancestors may have walked 18,000–20,000 steps a day, modern adults average somewhere between 3,000 and 12,000. Despite this drop in load, back pain, SI joint dysfunction, and knee replacements are epidemic.
A Global Glimpse at the Knee
Knees don’t just tell us about biomechanics—they tell us about culture.
In the United States, over 700,000 total knee replacements were performed in 2010. That number is expected to rise to nearly 4 million per year by 2030. These aren’t isolated cases. They represent a growing norm, one with significant human and financial cost. The rate of knee replacements has already jumped from 181 to 225 procedures per 100,000 people in a little over a decade.
But if we widen the lens, the story shifts.
In many Asian countries, per capita knee replacement rates remain far lower, even among older populations. In Japan, where deep squatting, floor sitting, and barefoot movement remain part of daily life, just over 138,000 total knee replacements were reported in 2020–2021. South Korea’s rates are even lower, sitting below 63 per 100,000 people.
The difference invites a deeper question—not just about medicine, but about movement.
What kinds of daily patterns preserve joint integrity? And which ones wear it down?
The Western shift toward padded shoes, sedentary environments, and compartmentalized, linear training may be more than a lifestyle change—it may be an evolutionary mismatch. When spirals are lost and joints stop working together, the knee doesn’t just age. It compensates.
The Lost Spiral: A Biomechanical Blind Spot
The femur sits in a spiral-shaped socket. The tibia rotates subtly under the femur. The pelvis and sacrum shift in complex counterbalances. These structures are built for coiling, winding, and rebound.
In well-integrated movement:
The femur rotates externally as the tibia rotates internally.
The foot pronates and supinates in response to pelvic motion.
The SI joint rotates just enough to transfer force from the spine to the legs and back again.
But modern habits—sitting, walking on concrete, loading linear lifts in gyms—have shut these patterns down. We see:
Hips that can’t rotate
Knees that track poorly or absorb torque
SI joints that shear or lock
A squat that won’t deepen, from both stiffness and misalignment
When the body loses its spiral, it doesn’t just become less mobile. It loses its ability to absorb and return force, to adapt across planes, and to move with efficiency. We lose spring, suppleness, and safety.
The Body as Spring (and the Wisdom of the Caracal)
Rotation is not just a matter of joint health—it’s a key to resilience. Spirals store and release energy in ways that straight lines cannot.
Think of a caracal cat, native to Africa and parts of Asia, and the only cat that can jump high enough to catch birds in flight. When it leaps into the air—sometimes ten+ feet high to catch a bird in flight—it does so with a whole-body coil. Its powerful hind legs act as springs. Its spine arches and twists mid-air, allowing the animal to make precise, last-moment corrections. The caracal doesn't just jump—it organizes.
This is the essence of what spiral mechanics allow in the human body: the ability to wind, store tension, and release with precision. It's not just about strength. It’s about spring. Elastic potential that comes not from effort, but from well-sequenced structure.
In well-spiraled human movement, the ground gives us something. We don’t just push off of it—we receive it. Ground force reaction moves upward through the fascial web, recycled and redistributed through tissues that know how to organize.
These movements aren’t just muscular—they’re fascial. When the body coils, it uses diagonal tension lines in the connective tissue to store and release power. Some call this pre-tension or tensegrity. We might just call it spring, and this spring begins with the ground. A well-spiraled body harnesses ground reaction force—that subtle push-back from the earth when we step, squat, or jump—and recycles it through our fascial web.
But in many modern bodies, this elastic response is dulled. Fascia is under-stimulated. Rotation is lost. Movement becomes muscular and effortful, not reflexive.
Restoring spring isn’t about muscling through—it’s about reminding the body how it was designed to move.
Strength and Mobility Aren’t the Whole Story
It’s common to focus on capacity—how much range we have, how much force we can produce. And those are important questions. But capacity, without coordination, doesn’t yield sustainability.
Let’s be clear: strength and mobility training are essential components of a healthy, resilient body. Building capacity through load and range keeps tissues responsive and joints nourished. These are not optional—they’re foundational.
But here’s the catch: without restoring the body’s natural design and mechanical coherence, strength and mobility alone can’t carry the full load. When spirals are missing, force doesn’t travel well. When joint timing is off, mobility becomes compensation. When alignment isn’t embodied, strength becomes force.
The body is not a collection of isolated parts—it’s an orchestra. Muscles, fascia, joints, and breath all play together. If the system isn’t tuned, even the strongest notes won’t sound right.
The ideal is to build both: an embodied understanding of your anatomy and mechanics, and the strength, mobility, and adaptability to express that foundation in any context—whether dancing, lifting, rolling, or simply walking with more ease.
This isn’t an argument against mobility or strength. It’s a call to integrate them into the deeper intelligence of movement.
What Makes a Squat Functional?
We often use the deep squat as a kind of holy grail—proof of physical readiness or efficiency. But depth, by itself, tells us very little. What matters more is how that depth is achieved.
In a well-spiraled squat, the femur externally rotates as it tracks through the hip. The tibia internally rotates in response. The pelvis remains mobile, adjusting to the spine’s rhythm. The foot stays in conversation with the ground. The whole pattern breathes.
When that spiral collapses, the knees may knock inward, heels lift, or the low back folds under load. Not because the person lacks effort, but because the system lacks clarity.
The squat becomes a mirror. It reflects the quality of our organization, not just our discipline. Improving it isn't just a matter of going deeper. It's a matter of sequencing smarter.
Chasing a deeper squat without restoring the body’s natural rotational mechanics is like asking a door to swing open without first unlocking the hinge. If your squat isn’t deep yet, it’s not necessarily a sign that you’re tight—it might just be a signal that the order of operations is off.
Before you go deeper, go spiral. Restore the body’s original sequencing, and depth will become a byproduct of integration, not a goal you force.
A Better Question for the Knee
The knee often becomes the scapegoat in movement. It hurts, so we blame it. We brace it. We train around it. But the knee, in many ways, is just reporting upstream and downstream failures.
The knee is classically described as a hinge joint, but in truth, it has a subtle capacity for rotation, especially during flexion and extension. It relies on the coordination of the hip and foot to maintain safe tracking. But when the spiral above (femoral rotation) or below (tibial tracking and foot articulation) is off, the knee becomes a compensatory joint, bearing the brunt of misalignment elsewhere.
This often shows up as:
Medial knee pain
Lateral tracking issues
Ligament stress, especially during pivoting or squatting
When spiral sequencing is lost, the knee compensates. But it’s not built to lead—only to follow. If your knees are loud, unstable, or painful, chances are the issue isn’t the knee—it’s the rotational miscommunication above or below it.
The knee doesn’t lead. It follows.
Lower Crossed Syndrome and SI Dysfunction
One of the most common postural patterns we see today is Lower Crossed Syndrome—a predictable imbalance where tight hip flexors and lumbar extensors pair with underactive glutes and abdominals. This not only affects pelvic tilt and lumbar curvature but also disrupts the spiral integrity of the lower body.
The result is:
Reduced glute-driven femoral rotation
Over-reliance on the quads and lumbar spine
Anterior pelvic tilt that inhibits tibial IR and dorsiflexion
SI joint shear due to lack of rotational “containment”
Addressing Lower Crossed patterns isn’t just about strength and stretching—it’s about re-educating the spiral load transfer system. When that returns, posture improves, movement lightens, and pain often fades.
Final Thoughts: Movement as Memory
The spiral isn’t something new to learn. It’s something old to recover. It’s written into the shape of your joints. Into the lines of your fascia. Into your gait, your breath, your center of mass. Reclaiming it isn’t a new frontier—it’s a homecoming. We need to remember how we were built to move: with rhythm, rotation, and resilience.
Want to Go Deeper?
If this material speaks to you, we’ll be exploring it in depth during our upcoming Mixed Movement Arts Technique Clinic:
🌀 The Hips Don’t Lie: Spirals, SI Support & the Knee
🗓️ Sunday, July 27th, 2025
🕕 6:00 PM CET / 9:00 AM MST
📍 Live on Zoom (Replay Provided)
⏱️ 120-minute workshop + Q&A + follow-along recording
We’ll dive into:
Spiral restoration for the hip/knee/ankle chain
Banded drills for rotational support
SI joint care and lower crossed patterning
Functional sequencing for the squat and beyond
You’ll leave with a deeper embodied understanding of how your lower body is meant to move—and tools to help it get there.
References
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Escamilla, Rafael F. “Knee Biomechanics of the Dynamic Squat Exercise.” Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, vol. 33, no. 1, 2001, pp. 127–141.
Salem, George J., et al. “Patellofemoral Joint Kinetics during Squat in Older Adults.” Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, vol. 35, no. 9, 2003, pp. 1523–1531.
Kanekar, Neeta, and Sudeshna Sharma. “Lower Cross Syndrome: A Narrative Review.” Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies, vol. 25, 2021, pp. 296–304. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbmt.2021.02.007.
Zhang, Ying, et al. “Three-Dimensional Biomechanical Evaluation of Deep Squats Using a Musculoskeletal Model.” Computer Methods in Biomechanics and Biomedical Engineering, vol. 23, no. 2, 2020, pp. 55–64. https://doi.org/10.1080/10255842.2019.1675081.
American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. “Knee Replacement Surgery.” OrthoInfo, 2023. https://orthoinfo.aaos.org/en/treatment/total-knee-replacement/.
Lee, Chang-Ho, et al. “Trends in Total Knee Arthroplasty in South Korea.” Clinical Orthopaedic Surgery, vol. 10, no. 1, 2018, pp. 47–54. https://doi.org/10.4055/cios.2018.10.1.47.
Kim, Young-Hoo, et al. “Knee Arthroplasty in Asian Patients: Epidemiologic Considerations.” The Journal of Arthroplasty, vol. 28, no. 8, 2013, pp. 138–143.
“Caracal.” National Geographic, www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/facts/caracal. Accessed 9 July 2025.