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Fascia: The visible soul?

26 Dec, 2024 10:18 By: Ceri Rees

It’s all about the fascia
Even people who are not very interested in anatomy, would probably be able to name Grey’s Anatomy,
the biblical authority on human anatomy since er...about 1868.

I can remember using its illustrations while studying sports science at Loughborough University,
supposedly the cutting edge sports science course in the UK! (back in the 90s anyway).
But, as with Galileo’s astronomical discoveries, things move on. There is a new vogue in town for sports therapists, physical and medical practitioners to get their teeth in to (well at least for the purposes of this blog it is relatively new) and it is called fascia.

So why all the fuss about fascia and what exactly is the fuss?
It now seems that when our Chinese ancestors discovered meridian or trigger points, over 2,000 years ago, they may have been talking about the septum of the fascia coinciding with key points on the bod.
Same idea but using a different language. Unlike individual muscles, which have traditionally been
studied as separate units (partly thanks to Grey and his illustrator ancestors), the fascia transcends and connects different motor units throughout the body. The advent of acupuncture may have been a way to manipulate the fascia using serated pins. Acupuncture has also been used as an emotional therapy tool, although this blog is not going to go in to that.

Suffice to say that we have known for 2,000 years that our emotional or psychological state can influence
our physical well being. Well fascia may provide the blueprint layer to our physical and emotional
biography.

See this quote in Lancet:
“Emotional and psychological illness such as depression , may cause significant physical symptoms over extended periods.”
Socrates said: “Emotional deterioration and disease of the mind will have their own physical
manifestation.” Hence we recognise certain obvious symptoms of stress, like hunched shoulders or a forward lean.
It may also be our most intelligent organ.

So what is fascia?
It is sometimes known as connective tissue or 'binding', a system of ropes and bags and pockets of
collagen within pockets, which interconnects by the septa and can adapt its collagen fibres according to
tensional demands. In dissection it is known as the white stringy bit surrounding the muscle, which used
to get cast away like the rind on a sliver of bacon. The fascia covers and connects every organ, muscle
nerve and fibre and even contains more fibres than pure muscle.

Austin Burn Jones, a physical therapist who gives regular Blue Dog Seminars to practitioners, which aim to make anatomical, medical and biomedical issues more accessible, uses the example of the Zebra, calmly chewing grass in the plains. One minute, the zebra is in its parasympathetic state, happily grazing and digesting, until a lion pops up over the horizon and singles it out for special attention. The ensuing chase requires the zebra to quickly switch to its sympathetic system, muscles fill with blood and its digestive organs are relegated to the sidelines. But what else happens? There is a psychological stress reflex which influences the extent to which the zebra is able to respond. After the chase, the zebra is soon able to return to chewing, as though nothing had ever happened. (Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers?
Robert Sapolsky).

Most humans are not so easy going and will dwell on this incident for some time to come, unable to eat or digest food (contrary to common perception, it is the absence of acid in our stomachs, which allows us to develop ulcers, but that's another story). Our psychological make up predisposes us towards a slightly longer stress response.

The presence of smooth muscle cells in fascia suggests that it is capable of being excited by the
sympathetic adrenal response, whether it is fear, fight, flight or the other f ! This is something that is
explored in more detail by Robert Schleip in Fascinating Fascia, 2009.

As Shleip discovered, fascia is influenced by the nervous system and produces a short term plasticity response to stress. It is also the most important organ for proprioception, as it is full of nerve endings and is therefore classified as being very much 'alive', like putty which can be moulded by our external and internal world.

We know from experiments that muscles can transmit their tensional forces to fascia, so that it can
contract and stretch. This has been compared to a sea of sardines, which rush to the area that is being put under pressure, by recruiting extra fibres.

I have been a willing volunteer for sports therapist Joe Kelly, who works in the unpretentious
surroundings of the industrial estate in Totnes. The activation technique that he applies, is very
much to do with applying very focussed pressure to an area of apparent weakness or blockage,
which involves the synergy of several muscles. Either side if this, he requests you to perform a
functional movement. The activation always produces an instantaneous response in me. The
muscle/s or motor unit in question, seems to respond by doubling up its strength. The effect of
this is to kick start an overstressed muscle back in to action, releasing the overcompensating
synergistic muscles to perform their prescribed jobs. But what if he is also manipulating the
fascia, as well?

What is interesting is the activation of the diaphragm, which involves a gentle massage around
the bone sternum. After locating a tight or painful spot, Joe guides you to then perform some
breathing exercises, lying on the floor with your knees bent and breathing from the stomach
rather than the chest. The effect is to liberate your breathing and the effect can also be quite
emotionally liberating. From a performance perspective, you are less likely to be hunched in the
shoulders and therefore more relaxed during dynamic movement.

So we know that the fascia is wired to our autonomous (involuntary) nervous system and to our
parasympathetic or inhibitory system, which means it can inhibit or excite our muscular response. If it is true that it is really capable of reacting to emotional input and influencing our emotions, for example through serotonin release (mainly produced in the belly), as well as interacting with our muscular/skeletal/central nervous system, as it has been suggested, then no wonder it has been described as the nearest thing we have to a visible soul.