Fascia, the connective tissue that holds the internal structure of the body together, hasn't really been in the spotlight for very long. Anatomists knew of its existence before the Hippocratic Oath, but until the 1980s it was routinely thrown into the trash during human autopsies, seen as little more than a wrapper that got in the way of studying everything else. However, over the past few decades, our understanding of this exercise has evolved and (perhaps) gone too far – there are now plenty of personal trainers who will insist that you relax it with a foam roller, or even use its magical elastic power to jump higher and do more push-ups. But what is this Really do – and is there a way you can actually take advantage of it?
“The easiest way to describe fascia is to think of the structure of a tangerine,” says Natasha Kilian, a musculoskeletal physical therapist at Pure Sports Medicine. “You have an outer shell, and underneath that is a white core that separates the segments and holds them together. Fascia works in a similar way: it is a continuous, all-encompassing network that wraps and connects everything in the body, from muscles and nerves to blood vessels and organs. It is essentially the body's internal wetsuit, keeping everything supported and integrated.” If you have ever cut into a piece of meat, you will see that the muscles are covered with a thin silvery layer, similar to cling film.
It is physically made of collagen, although it is actually 70% water. It hydrates the skin through squeezing movements that pump fluid through the fascial layers, keeping them elastic and gliding smoothly. It also contains nerve endings that allow it to sense movement, pressure and temperature, and can also influence posture and movement. and proprioception.
“It constantly tells the brain what the body is feeling,” says Kilian. “It’s not a thin layer—it’s a massive, functional sensory system that holds us together.”
Healthy fascia acts like a biological spring, processing energy during movement and contributing to running, jumping, and athletic performance. This has led some movement coaches to suggest that you can use its elasticity to make it more explosive – say, “screwing” into the ground to do more push-ups – but that's not entirely true. “It's not going to do wonders for you and make you magically stronger,” says functional movement specialist and anatomist Julian Baker. “But if we keep it smooth and keep it moving, it will improve the quality of our movements.”
This is really the key. The nature of fascia means that it reacts to what we do all the time, locking us into that set of movements and making everything else a little more difficult. “Our bodies are smart,” says Kilian. “When we repeat the same action, the body adapts to make the task easier. For most of us, this means hours spent at a desk, hunched over a keyboard. Over time, we become stuck in this position. So if you work long days and play cricket or tennis on the weekends, you may feel it when you bowl or serve – your fascia has become tight from holding your arms forward all week.”
The easiest way to fix this is to spend more time doing movements that you would otherwise do only occasionally. “I talk about it in terms of the range of potential opportunities,” Baker says. “If I tell a group of people to raise their arms as high as possible, then take a breath and raise them higher, they will always go up another couple of inches – the reason is that we have an expanded range of potential that we very rarely enter. This is our circle, and as we get older, we stop moving, that circle gets smaller. As the circle gets smaller, our connective tissue starts to shrink, and that starts to limit us in what we can do. If I'm 85 and I want to reach up and grab a cup from the shelf, you don't have to have strong back muscles – I need a full range. In fact, I don't think there is one range or one specific movement – the main idea is to keep moving in as many different ways and ranges as possible.”
But the fascia is not immune to problems, and dealing with them can be an unpleasant process. Many problems that can arise with the fascia will not be clear on, say, an MRI, which is one reason that deep-seated structural problems in the body can be difficult to diagnose.
So how do you start to fix this? Until recently, many answers to this question revolved around the idea of rolling the bottom of the foot over a golf ball or lying on your side to roll the iliotibial band (the tough strip of connective tissue that runs up the outside of the thigh, from the knee to the hip) on a large lumpy cylinder, in a process sometimes called self-myofascial release. But in reality it may not be that useful.
“The current consensus is that you can't really 'break' the fascia as many people think,” Kilian says. “While rolling your feet can help by increasing blood flow and relieving tension, it's important to look at the body as a whole system. You need to consider the tension in your glutes, hamstrings, calves and back, not just the area where you're feeling pain. It's how all of these muscles and fascial lines interact (or don't interact) that leads to discomfort. In other words, don't confuse the victim with the perpetrator.”
Baker has a slightly different take on why rolling can still produce results. “If you put a foam roller on the ground and go down and rotate your hips every day for 30 days, nothing will happen to your fascia. But the fact is that you went down to the floor and came up again. And that movement, where you're likely to move your body in a way that you otherwise wouldn't do for weeks or months, is what's going to make a difference.”
What does this mean for most people? It might be worth trying rock climbing (Baker runs his own group for over-50s) or swimming, dancing or Pilates, all of which force the body through unusual ranges and types of rotation.
But if it's all a bit tedious, maybe it just means you need to take the time to move more naturally. “Think about the way a cat or dog stretches—or even the way we naturally yawn and move when we're relaxed on vacation, stretching our arms out,” says Kilian. “The body instinctively knows which direction it needs to move in order to release tension and release restricted fascia. Even something as simple as taking a long, slow diaphragmatic breath during a stretch can help lengthen the fascia and encourage the entire system to move more freely.”
There is still a lot of research to be done: as noted, we have only just stopped throwing away fascia. For now, just move as much as possible, as often as possible and in different ways.
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