What is Fascia?

“Fascia” is a word you will be seeing and hearing more and more.   If I told you that movement could become next to effortless, or that you wouldn’t feel exhausted or as sore after your workout or practicing your “sport”, would you believe me?  That is what I’m finding from my own personal experiences practicing and teaching Pilates, running, and riding horses.  Since graduating from Karin Locher’s Bridge to CPM (Contrology Pilates Method), I want to share with you what I’ve learned about movement, moving better, and fascia.  First of all what is fascia?  In an attempt to be brief…most articles a crazy long…here are some fun facts about Fascia, why it’s important, and some different ideas regarding movement.

• Fascia is a biological fabric that surrounds us like a body wide leotard.  It’s an extensive web of connective tissue underneath the skin…like the thin white sheet of tissue that you see on a chicken breast.
• It surrounds every muscle, organ, nerve, and cell in the body.
• Fascia is made up of collagen, protein and water, and is the largest storer of water in the body.  Fascia is hydrated and kept healthy by movement.  Fascia should slide, shear and have crimp…keeping us light and bouncy.  We get and keep that with movement.
• Muscles, organs and tissues must slide by each other.  When fascia becomes dehydrated and stuck by lack of movement, injury, or tension due to stress and/or trauma, we become more prone to injury.
•  Fascia is both plastic and elastic.  Always moving and adapting to our external and internal environments.
• Plastic in that it is a strong supportive tissue.  Our bones fall or press out into the fascia & muscles and tissue pull in on our bones…it’s the fascia that holds us up!  This is the concept of Tensegrity.  We are held together like a suspension bridge.
• Tensegrity…Tension + Integrity, gives us distribution of forces on the body enabling us to handle load with minimal effort.
• Elastic in that there is a stretch and recoil aspect in movement.  In a golf swing for example.  The body rotates to prepare for the swing creating stretch in the spiral line.  Like an elastic sash, the fascia will bring you around, or recoil, to hit the ball.
• Healthy fascia has springiness to it.  It loses it’s elasticity as we age.  Children bounce if they fall down.  We’re not as springy when we get older, we have less “bounce”.  Falling down hurts or we become injured.  Training more crimp  in the fascia creates more bounce making us less prone to injury.
• Training more elasticity in the fascia is training ourselves young!
• Fascia is full of nerve endings.  It’s the fascia that tells the muscles to move the bones.
• Fascia responds to our thoughts, and can change in response to imagery and visualization.
• Researchers are now thinking of fascia as the biggest player in the human movement system…and in our general health and well being.
• We are one body, not parts.  Instead of isolating individual muscles in movement, we’re looking at myofascial lines of distribution.  The fascial web connects us from our head to our feet.
• When the distribution of force is interrupted by holding tension, or tensing our muscles, it’s like putting the “hand-break” on movement.
• Muscles must be available.  Letting go of tension allows all of the muscles to be available when called upon. This is a different way of thinking.  If you are engaging muscles prior to movement the muscle is already in use and no longer “available”.   Unnecessary tension in the muscles can get in the way of movement.
• Know that you are still getting a workout even though you are not exhausting yourself or your muscles.  The work is distributed though the body’s tensegrity and the myofascial lines.  As a result, you can do more, you’ll be less sore, and have more energy to do other things.
• While fascia is associated with chronic pain, many people have found relief from musculoskeletal pain by taking care of their fascia through movement and manual therapies.

As a person with backpain, I found Pilates.  Through my Pilates journey I got my back pain under control, but there were some things I had decided my body just does not do.  Moving with consideration of fascia, letting go of tension, finding tensegrity and an understanding the myofascia lines/Anatomy Trains, I’m able to do exercises and movements that I could not do before, and it doesn’t hurt to move!  Real change does happen and takes anywhere from 6 months to 2 years.  That sounds like a long time, but there are great a-ha moments, small changes and victories along the way.

From the golfer, runner, body builder, Mom, or corporate professional, we see change and hear success stories from our clients everyday.   There are countless articles about fascia and movement.  If you want to learn more, we’ve posted a few articles that we like on our Facebook page.

I challenge you to be open to these new ideas about movement.  We would love to introduce them to you at Performance Pilates in Sugar Land.  For more information on classes, or to schedule a private session, contact Cody or Michelle at 713-301-5007.

Cody Robbins | Performance Pilates

Direct:  346-404-9907

References:

Karin Locher | Spatial Medicine:  CPM Education

Thomas Myers | “The Anatomy Trains…Myofascial Meridians for Manual & Movement Thereapists”