6/30/2009

Facia......

For a visual, Fascia is the white filmy "stuff" you see when you prepare chicken. I like to refer to it as the wrapping paper of the body. Fascia is conenctive tissue that warps around your muscles and bones and keeps everything together in a nice not always tidy package. The reason why it is important to work on the fascis is that it is what connects all of our muscles together and is sometimes the tissue that connects the muscles on to their boney insertion. For example, the IT band. Everyone has heard of this structure, but I find most clients have bo idea what it actually is. The IT band is a strip of thick fascia that runs between and around and connects with muscles in the hip (2 muscle groups with 10 muscles), thigh (3 muscle groups with 14 muscles). This thick band of fascia then inserts on to the femur on the lateral side of the thigh.
http://www.paulmanley.co.uk/hip/itband2.jpg
Why is it so sensitive? it is essentially the insertion area of over 2 dozen of the bodies largest muscles!! If your IT is tight, work on loosneing up all of the hip and thigh muscles. Fascia generally works similar to this throught the body. In most circles (including massage therapists, anatomists, physiologists, etc) the tissue of fascia is just as important to work out and loosen up as is the muscles. I am doing this usually when you feel be doing slow long deep strokes (usually with the forarm).