10/07/2026
Your body is much less interested in our neat anatomical categories than we are.
Today we’re following a mechanical connection from your upper body, across your back, all the way to the opposite hip.
And yes—we can actually measure it. 🔬
Swipe →
Meet one very cool cross-body connection:
Latissimus dorsi → thoracolumbar fascia → opposite gluteus maximus.
Both the latissimus dorsi and gluteus maximus have extensive connections with the thoracolumbar fascia, creating a potential pathway for force to travel between them.
Anatomical research has even demonstrated tension crossing to the contralateral side through this fascial system.
Right lat ↘ left glute.
Left lat ↘ right glute.
But anatomy showing a connection is one thing.
Does force actually travel through it in a living human?
Oh yes. Keep swiping.
Vleeming et al. (1995), Spine
PubMed source
This is where it gets properly FASCIA-nating.
Researchers tested 37 people while changing tension in the latissimus dorsi and measuring the opposite hip.
When participants actively contracted the lat, the opposite hip’s resting position shifted toward lateral rotation and its passive stiffness increased.
They changed tension in one region.
And measured a mechanical change somewhere else.
That’s called myofascial force transmission.
And this wasn’t just one strange experiment: a later study in 54 people again found that contracting the lat changed the resting position, passive torque and stiffness of the opposite hip.
Carvalhais et al. (2013), Journal of Biomechanics
2013 PubMed source
2024 study
2024 PubMed source
Okay. Your turn.
Do you have:
One shoulder that always feels tight?
An opposite hip that feels restricted?
A low back that repeatedly complains?
That does not mean one is necessarily causing the other.
But looking only at the place you feel the symptom can miss part of the mechanical picture.
And here’s an especially interesting clue:
A 2025 study found this lat-to-opposite-glute myofascial force transmission was reduced in people with chronic low-back pain compared with controls.
Not proof of cause.
Evidence that the relationship itself can differ. 👀
2025 PubMed study
Shoulder.
