What is the fascia exactly? Is it a protective layer? Part of the movement mechanism? Maybe it’s just a wrapper layer to keep everything intact..?
Whichever answer you’ve picked, you were correct, Fascia is all of the above, it’s a protective layer that covers up our whole body, including our internal organs, muscles, bones, and so on. Fascia is built of layers, each layer reacting to the layer above and below allowing smooth motion, maintaining Newton’s law of action and reaction. It’s like a web of collagen fibers that wrap around the organ to keep it intact and placed. It allows the muscles to work along side other muscles by protecting them from colliding with one another and allowing smooth motion contributed by the layer structure described above. Due to it’s web like structure, it allows movements in a variety of directions, according to the muscular requirements. Fascia can be found from our head, to our toes, it’s everywhere in the body and it has a very strong influence of our ability to move without pain.
Let’s Talk Some Anatomy
The Fascia is a layered structure of connective fibers that goes one on top of the other to create a rigid but mobile structure. If we’re to put Fascia in a metaphor, it’s like a big traffic junction were road going north and south are on the 1st level, above you’d have roads leading east and west, on the 3rd level you’d have the roads taking you northeast, and southwest, while on the 4th and last level you’d have the last roads taking you northwest and southeast. That sort of junction, allows traffic to go in all directions without the requirement to stop the traffic on any other lane.
Fascial fiber direction is set according to the muscle fibers connecting to it, and would determine the movement structure for the organ. In order to maintain this type of motion, Fascia, like a Synovial Joint, requires lubrication. While a Synovial Joint uses Synovial Fluid, Fascia uses a Hyaluronic Acid to allow the movements between layers and fibers.
It is important to note that the Fascia is like a sheath covering the whole body and connects all our organs and body parts together. In recent years, Fascia’s role in our bodies begin to unfold and take new attributes. While not only allowing movement, Fascia is also used as part of the nervous system to have better transmissions sent through the body. A recent study relating to post-COVID syndrome has found that ” Fascia focused therapeutic interventions are shown to reduce pain and support a re-establishment of function while providing safe, effective and appropriate non-invasive therapy”.
What Does Any Of It Has To Do With Pain?
Well, a poorly functioning Fascia would cause poor functionality in the body. Should a Fascia be damaged in anyway, the overall structure can be negatively affected and that can cause mobility restrictions amongst other things.Taking into consideration that we’ve mentioned Fascia can be found anywhere, the pain inflicted at a certain area does not necessarily mean that area is the location of the injured tissue.
To supply a more understandable example, if you take the shirt you are currently wearing, and twist a part of it on the back, you’d see the shirt tightens on your front, and changing it’s shape on the back. The change you’ve just applied was only to the back of the shirt, however, since it’s one piece of fabric that wraps around you, the change was felt on the front as much as it was felt on the back. Fascia functions in likeness to that very same idea, should there be an issue on the any part of the body’s Fascia, it could effect the whole muscular system. The pain could be felt on a group of muscle in proximity to the Fascial root cause, but it could also be felt on a different area that related in some way to the root cause.
So how can a Fascia start to poorly function? There are a few causes, the first cause, is an trauma injury that resulted with lose of the Fascia’s mobility, and has made it less elastic. Another cause, would be lack of lubrication, if for any reason the Fascia is lacking the Hyaluronic Acid between the layers it would not be as mobile as it should. On the other end of that same spectrum, having to much of Hyaluronic Acid held within, would swollen the area and restrict movement as well.
What Can You Do?
If we look from a sports angle, a warmup for the area using easier weights or movement patterns would engage with the acid release in the Fascia and help with the elasticity of the Fascia. Foam rolling or using a ball at a specified area that may cause some issues, can supply relief as it warms up the area and engages circulation along with neuromuscular and Fascial responses, helping the tissue become more functional.
Looking through a therapist’s point of view, treating Fascia is considered a very gentle therapeutic technique. Should a Fascia function as expected, the patient would hardly feel anything, and might think you are wasting time, but should a Fascia be irritated, the therapist would feel pops in his hand while engaging the technique, and the patient may feel severe pain, burning sensations, or would describe a very unpleasant feeling.
The image of this article, is a demonstration of the technique I’m referring to at the paragraph above. You would grab the skin on the area you suspect might have a malfunctioning Fascia, with both your finger and thumb, make share you are not pinching the patient, pull it slightly up, and roll the skin around the area of the muscle. You can go with the muscle direction, or cross it’s fiber direction, for as was mentioned, Fascia is built with layers and varies in directions. Repeat the motion until you stop feeling the little pops between your fingers, the patient would also report that they are at ease and it is no longer hurting them. Attached an Instagram post with a short video as an example of how to engage.
From my experience as a manual therapist, treating the Fascia along side muscles and joint mobilization can give a tremendous effect,and can make the session much more efficient.
If you have specific questions or want to dig deeper into a topic, feel free to contact me, if you’ve found an error through the article, let me know as well so it would be corrected shortly. Stay Safe!