[3] Muscle tone is regulated by the activity of the motor neurons and can be affected by various factors, including age, disease, and nerve damage.
A person with low tone will most likely not be able to engage in "explosive" movement such as needed in a sprinter or high jumper.
For example, a person can be high tone with normal to poor flexibility in most areas, but be able to put the palms of the hands on the floor with straight knees due to hypermobile sacroiliac joints.
[citation needed] It is important to assess several areas before deciding if a person has high, low, or normal muscle tone.
[citation needed] Physical disorders can result in abnormally low (hypotonia) or high (hypertonia) muscle tone.
[1] Spasticity can be in the form of the clasp-knife response, in which there is increased resistance only at the beginning or at the end of the movement.
In ophthalmology, tonus may be a central consideration in eye surgery, as in the manipulation of extraocular muscles to repair strabismus.