Fascia!
Fascia!
Was going to add this into joints last week, because ultimately like joints it's a connector of movement. But that's way too simple and ultimately it needs a full blog to give it some depth.
What the hell is fascia
It's a connective, protective layer of tissue below the skin that covers and wraps around absolutely everything. Muscles, organs, bones, etc. For any of you meat eaters, you know the white stringy stuff you see when you pull apart a raw chicken breast. That's fascia.
We've only just started skimming the surface of fascia though. Within the medical world it was always disregarded. Mainly because when seen in a cadaver it looks useless. Like a bit of biological bubble wrap we can just throw away. Despite the lack of scientific backup outliers who understood the body from a movement versus structural perspective knew what was up.
Mabel Todd wrote about the concept of it 100 years ago in a “Thinking Body” one of the most foundational texts on movement. Martial artists have thought about it for centuries using terms like chi and rooting to describe the power of connecting the body as a singular unit but it's all been very mysterious and understudied. Thomas Myers wrote a book about 15 years ago that got a lot of attention and finally blew open the conversation. Arguably forcing the medical world to give it the attention is diserves.
Side note, be very wary of taking biomechanical advice from someone who doesn't pursue moving their body in intricate ways. No rants but, ahem ahem, medical world, you dropped the ball on this one.
Anyway, scientific boo boos aside, we are now starting to understand what it really is. It's like a movement information superhighway. A movement nervous system. Sending signals to and from your soft tissues on how to move in a given moment.
You see, muscles and tendons cross joints and create movement. But it's fascia that connects all of them simultaneously into one continuous tensional network. When I squat, my quad and tibialis are both working, but it's my fascia that coordinates that signal across the whole system at once.
Connection
This is the connection that makes us think about movements over muscles. The entire body is connected and it is almost impossible that any movement in one part of the body doesn't have an effect elsewhere. My right shoulder being funky along with my left hip. Unsurprising.
Fascia holds onto and develops patterns over time. It doesn't just react in real time. It's got the memory of an elephant. And it tries to put that memory to use to help us. Like protecting a movement pattern after an injury. Or affirming a movement pattern that is used over and over again. If you sit 9 hours a day, your fascia will find that mold. Hold tension in your traps subconsciously, fascia picks that up as what is important.
And it’s not just movement that affects fascia. Stress, anxiety, grief, joy they all play a role in the health and memory of fascial tissue. Airy fairy as that sounds, that is the incredible power of fascia. Connecting not just movement but emotions and thoughts. It truely does help us operate as entire entity.
Overzealous though
But sometimes this memory is a bit more commanding than we would like and fascia gets stuck in certain patterns. If it is not moved and exercised through the body's full ability of movement patterning it will no longer be able to create a large vocabulary of movement. It will become calcified and stiff.
A perfect example of this is one most of us over 40 will recognise. Plantar fasciitis. That heel and base of the foot pain that is so common. That is essentially your fascia getting all bound up and stuck, then pulling on the muscles and ligaments around the ankle and causing pain. No surprises it is most painful in the morning when you wake up, after not moving it for 8 hours.
How to train it
Movement variety This is the most important piece. It is very important that we learn to move in a variety of ways, planes, speeds and volumes.
Mobility Making sure muscles are used through a full range of motion, especially in a lengthened position.
Breathwork The nervous system and fascia are deeply connected. Breathwork, specifically learning to exhale fully and breathe with intention, helps regulate the nervous system which in turn directly affects fascial tension and tissue quality. Some research also suggests it can influence the body's pH balance, though that conversation is still evolving. Either way, how you breathe affects how you move. Worth paying attention to.
Soft tissue work Some research to suggest that massage and soft tissue work can keep fascia pliable.
Hydration Fascia is mostly water. Don't let the body get dry and calcified. Ew.
What this looks like at Uptown
What this looks like at Uptown
So, in class what this looks like is:
First: Awareness. Learning to connect your entire body. Learning to think in movement patterns and move away from the question of "what muscle is this exercise for?" and towards "what movement pattern is it for?". We do this with full body exercises like quats and Deadlifts. We keep the complexity low so that the attention to the pattern can stay high.
Second: Changing planes of movement, not just straight up and down. But sideways, rotationally and from high to low. On one leg, on a half kneeling position, on two legs, etc. Building that connection in multiple ways. We crawl, we roll, we throw, we push, we pull. Reach, twist and turn. We mainly do this in our advanced classes, our flow classes and conditioning class. We believe we have to get the basics and strength back first to build the connections. Then we use em to get funky.
Third: Loaded stretching. Using weights in our stretches to build strength in increased ranges of motion or lengthened muscles. These exercises are in our strength and mobility classes. They are usually the ones we hate the most because they are the patterns we avoided the most!
Fourth: Incorporating patience and time. Fascia is manipulatable and can be taught to reclaim old patterns or even new patterns, but it can't be done instantly, it takes a long time. That's why patience and acceptance is a beautiful piece of the practice.
So there we go a quick intro to fascia. It should be enough to get you thinking in terms of a whole interconnected body and movement patterns versus the robotic idea that we are just a bunch of individual parts. Next up I plan to cover the cardiovascular system and then maybe the nervous system, but if you have suggestions or topics you'd love to hear about throw em out there.