Soft Tissue Tone
Definition
The resting tension in a muscle or muscle group when not voluntarily contracted. Elevated tone (hypertonicity) means the muscle maintains excessive tension at rest. Reduced tone (hypotonicity) means the muscle is less responsive than expected. Tone is a neurological property -- it reflects the nervous system's baseline activation of the muscle, not its strength.
Clinical Significance
Assessing soft tissue tone explains why some muscles remain 'tight' despite consistent stretching. A hypertonic muscle is receiving excessive neural drive at rest -- stretching the tissue does not change the neural signal. The intervention for hypertonicity is to reduce the demand on the muscle by addressing the postural position that requires it to work constantly. For example, chronic upper trap hypertonicity often resolves when thoracic kyphosis is corrected because the traps no longer need to compensate for the head position.
How AKMI Assesses This
AKMI evaluates soft tissue tone through palpation and postural observation. Key muscles assessed include upper trapezius, suboccipitals, hip flexors, quadratus lumborum, and piriformis. Hypertonic findings are cross-referenced with postural data to determine whether the tone is compensatory (protecting a structural position) or primary (neural driver).
Get your general assessed
A biomechanical assessment measures soft tissue tone and its relationship to the rest of your structural chain. 18 tests, objective data, personalized programming.