What is fascia and how can we treat it?
Welcome to the weird world of Fascia! It's a phrase that some of you may have heard, along with myofascial release therapy, and it's becoming a key component of the body as we research more and more and understand it's role better. That's all well and good, but what IS fascia, and how is it relevant to you? Let's look a little further at what this mystery tissue is, where it's found, what it does and how we can treat it. Read on for more information...
The Fundamentals...
At its very basic level, fascia is a connective tissue in the body. For many years, medics thought that it was simply a packing material to fill gaps, but science has disproven this!
Fascia is like the skin on a sausage which wraps around the muscles, but as science has investigated it more, we now know that it webs throughout all the tissues of the body to encase everything together, wrapping around individual muscles, nerves and blood vessels! Yet, fascia isn't just about muscles, it joins in patterns throughout the body to aid movement, and wraps around some organs such as the intestines, brain, lungs and even eyeballs!
Why is it there?
- Force Transmission – Fascia can withstand significant forces and has some elastic properties, being able to return to its original length, however, if a load is applied over a long period of time, the fascia can distort.
- Sensory information – Fascia has many, many nerve endings in it and plays a major role in telling our brain what our body is doing by perceiving movement and posture, giving information to the brain about our coordination. Fascia tissue is constantly sending information to the brain about our body.
Injury and Treatment
Like any tissue in the body, fascia can suffer from dysfunction. Lack of movement, poor nutrition, bad posture, inflammation, physical and emotional trauma can all impact on the fascia's ability to slide across other body structures. This can lead to compensation patterns such as the fascia shortening and thickening.
There are various treatments available to help improve how the fascia slides and glides in the body, but they should be accompanied with exercises and other treatments such as joint mobilisations, to correct any stiffness in the body and recreate balance.
We have undertaken many hours in fascia release treatments and use a plethora of methods to help create the change your body needs. If you feel like this is something that would suit you, please do get in touch ASAP so we can get started right away.
