Introduction
Every physical action, from walking to playing an instrument, depends on the brain’s ability to control muscles with precision. Yet things often go wrong. A piano passage stays just out of reach no matter how much I practice. My golf shots are inconsistent. In some activities I’m a complete klutz, and as I get older my joints seem to be wearing out.
Why does this happen? On this page, I explain the surprising reason: hidden wiring patterns in the brain laid down when we are children.
Motor Linkages
When we move, each group of muscles is controlled by its own small area in the brain. One area controls the fingers, another the wrist, another the arm, and so on.
Sometimes these brain areas become connected. When this happens, activating one area automatically activates the other. In effect, the brain sends two movement commands at once, one intentional and one unintended. I call these connections between motor areas in the brain motor linkages.
You can experience this yourself. Try pressing your little finger into your palm while keeping your ring finger straight. Most people will notice that, in at least one hand, the ring finger bends too, and no amount of effort will keep it straight. This happens because the brain areas that control those fingers are linked: when you bend your little finger, the ring finger bends as well.
Some motor linkages work primarily in one direction. In this example, bending the little finger causes the ring finger to bend, but bending the ring finger does not necessarily move the little finger. This suggests that the control area for the little finger triggers the one for the ring finger, but not the other way around.
When opposing muscles across a single joint are linked, they contract together which exerts internal pressure on the joint they cross.
How Motor Linkages Form
Whenever a child performs an action, such as walking, holding hands, or reaching for something, while receiving positive attention, the brain links the motor areas controlling the muscle groups involved in that movement.
Examples:
Many young children spend time holding hands with adults, an activity often linked to feelings of comfort and safety. Holding hands naturally activates both the little and ring fingers together. Because this happens in an emotionally engaging moment, the brain forms a motor linkage between the motor areas controlling those fingers.
When children first learn physical skills such as walking, their nervous systems have not yet developed the ability to control individual muscles with precision. To stabilize movement, young children often activate opposing muscle groups across the same joint at the same time, a pattern called co‑activation. If this co‑activation occurs while the child receives emotional attention, the brain areas controlling those opposing muscles form motor linkages.
Motor linkages cause joint problems in adults
Motor linkages formed in childhood persist into adulthood. If a person’s major joints, such as the hips or knees, have significant motor linkages, those joints are continually subjected to internal pressure and may eventually wear out. This helps explain why hip and knee replacements are so common.
Physical Skill
Motor linkages determine a person’s maximum potential physical skill level. The fewer linkages present in the muscles being used, the more precise and efficient movement becomes. When only the necessary muscles activate, motion is smooth and well‑coordinated.
By contrast, motor linkages cause muscles that should remain relaxed to contract unintentionally, disrupting the intended action. The result is inefficient or awkward movement.
Linkages between opposing muscles across a joint create an even stronger effect. These opposing contractions slow motion, waste energy, and prevent the body from reaching maximum strength quickly.
In short, fewer motor linkages allow for cleaner, faster, more powerful movement. A greater number of linkages leads to wasted effort and reduced control.
People must compensate
When people learn a physical skill, much of their effort goes into compensating for the unintended movements produced by linked muscles. This compensation requires conscious control and a lot of repetition.
Conscious control is strongly influenced by emotion. A person’s emotional state affects how precisely they can apply the fine, deliberate effort needed to counter or incorporate these unintended movements. Even subtle emotional changes can noticeably alter a person’s skill level at that moment, which is why athletes have good days and bad days.
Undoing the Linkages
The same change process that reverses baseline emotions also disconnects the motor linkages formed in childhood. As these linkages dissolve, the movement problems described earlier begin to ease. When all have been released, physical ability reaches its highest potential, limited only by any permanent physical damage.
Progress starts slowly. In the early stages, improvements may be hard to notice. But as the process continues, each change builds on the last, and the rate of improvement gradually increases. It’s a long, steady process that unfolds over many years, with each year bringing slightly more visible results than the one before.
For those familiar with mathematics, this pattern resembles a geometric progression. Each linkage reduces potential ability by a fixed percentage, so the gains from removing one linkage become larger as fewer remain. This simple mathematical relationship produces the gradual acceleration that I experienced during my change process.