What Is Fascia and Why Is It So Important?
Fascia is a thin casing of connective tissue that surrounds and holds every organ, blood vessel, bone, nerve fibre and muscle in place. It gives the body its structure (along with the skeleton) and has nerves that make it almost as sensitive as skin. If you picture the way that an orange segment is encased in a thin skin, and then each tiny little juicy bit of orange is also encased in an even thinner layer, this is just like how fascia encases everything in our bodies. Simply put, it's like internal clingfilm.
There are three main types of fascia:
Superficial fascia - associated with the skin
Deep fascia - associated with muscles, bones, nerves and blood vessels
Visceral (or Subserous) fascia - associated with internal organs
Fascia is designed to stretch and move - it's strong, flexible and wet. Having said this, it can sometimes dry up, becoming thick and sticky. Often trauma, lack of movement or overuse can cause this. A great example of this is when we sleep at night. Do you wake up feeling creaky and stiff? That's because your fascia has hardened overnight, but by simply getting up, moving and stretching, the fascia becomes lubricated and easily movable again.
Fascia is incredibly important as it holds the answer to a lot of pain in the body, often mistaken as muscular injury. And unfortunately, our sedentary lifestyles (think sitting at a desk 8 hours a day, sitting in a car to get to the desk, coming home to sit on a sofa of an evening) commonly results in the drying up of fascia.
The good news is, fascia loves massage! One of the key elements of a Sports Massage treatment is myofascial release which uses stretching, friction and movement to loosen up tight, sticky fascia, improving mobility and reducing pain.
I often think of fascia as a map of the individual. A person's experiences and lifestyle leave an imprint on their body, and fascia is like a map to read where and how a person stores everything that have been through and are holding, on a physical and emotional level (do you hold tenson in your shoulders, does your back start playing up when you're stressed?)
So, if you think you have a muscle injury, have a think as to what your fascia is doing and whether massage and myofascial release could help.