What is Fascia?
When I first started Block Therapy, I had no idea what I was getting into.
… Literally! I didn’t know what exactly this “fascia” stuff was that the Block was supposed to be digging into, but whatever it was, taking care of it was helping! In the practice of Block Therapy we talk about fascia a lot. It's not a term that is super familiar to many, as only a couple decades ago it was hardly used outside of the context of surgery and dissection. But its workings affect every day of our life, and it helps to know what it is that we're working with when we Block!
The Not-So-Nitty-Gritty Definition
To keep things simple, fascia is by definition the connective tissue that separates and stabilizes muscles, skin, and organs. You know how the skeleton provides structure, so that we’re human shaped instead of a blob? Well, it’s not just our skeleton that holds us in the shape that we are. The fascia is like a net, holding our cells stable so that they can do their job. Basically, think of a house. The cells are the contents of the house, like furniture, pictures, cooking equipment, electricity… and the fascia is the walls!
Types of Fascia
Fascia is classified into 3 types, or layers: Superficial, which is under the skin; Deep, which holds muscles together; and Visceral, which wraps and stabilizes our internal organs. For our purposes we focus mainly on the Deep Fascia, though Block Therapy is therapeutic for it all.
Deep Fascia and What Can Go Wrong
The Deep Fascia interweaves through muscles, binding them to each other and also protecting the nerves and blood vessels that run throughout. In a healthy human, fascia even acts as a divider to allow the muscles to glide past each other as they do their independent jobs. Problems arise, though, with tension and compression. The deep fascia is constantly migrating, realigning, and regripping to keep up with the varying demands on our muscles. When our body is held out of alignment, certain muscles are called on to work harder than they should, and the fascia calls in collagen and other building blocks to provide extra structure for that area. Remember our house analogy? It’s like building extra scaffolding for a house that’s tipping over.
The Outcome
So as the fascia builds upon itself and binds and grips to prevent us from falling over while we’re doing all kinds of wonky things with our body, it is also getting in the way of the very structures it’s supposed to protect - the nerves and blood vessels! It’s also got such a vice grip on our muscles that with adhesion and compression over time, we slowly lose our range of motion. You know those hulking bodybuilders who can’t reach their arms behind themselves? They’ve got all these bulky and showy muscles, but at what cost?
Caring for our fascia
It’s easy to forget about our fascia, until our system starts screaming at us. Good posture habits are key for both preventing compression and treating it, and so is fascia decompression! Block Therapy does both. With the block, we apply pressure to an area of adhesion (which could be anywhere and everywhere in our body) and activate our diaphragmatic breath. The combination of those actions brings blood flow to the area and melts the adhesions, restoring space to our system! Then, we always review and train postural habits, to keep these beneficial changes in place.
Full Body Freedom
Every minute of every day, our fascia is adjusting to our activities: growing, shrinking, and tugging to keep us upright, balanced, and functioning. It can either be moving us towards tension and pain, or lengthening and strengthening! Daily blocking practice may be the missing part of your routine, to keep your fascia moving in the right direction, and even turn back the hands of time as it works against gravity and aging. Sound like your thing? Reach out and I’d be glad to tell you more! Hope to see you in a class sometime!