Training Our Fascia: Move!
Training Fascia’s Movement
So let’s get moving. Today we are going to focus on the spring like quality of our fascia and train its ability to move us and be moved. Movement of a limb requires a muscle to move a bone, so movement is defined as the interaction between muscles and bones. A Muscles transition to bone is a tendon, and tendons are “tight fascia composed of densely packed and very strong collagen fibers”— so fascia is responsible for this connection and is therefore primarily responsible for the force transmission between muscle and bone. Fascia, therefore is the gatekeeper of all movement. So if you want to open the door to better movement, train your fascia.
To get in touch with this relationship we integrate smooth conscious movement into our postures. One of the most effective ways to do this is through the movements of the spine, as these movement affect the rest of your body holistically and from the core.
We do this by waving the spine
Rolling
Snaking
Spiraling
As these kinds of integrated movements become more natural and supported, they can be practiced with momentum and by doing so become spring like, which brings us to the other capacity of training our fascia.
Swinging & Swinging
One of Muscle fascia stores and releases energy through it’s elastic springiness, which is a measure of the quality of fascia and defines how we train to support this aspect of our fascia’s function.
Fascia is made of an elastic material, collagen, which when trained properly has a high rebound quality. This muscle fascia is arranged in a waves, which allow it to store and release energy efficiently. Regular movement of an area trains the fascia and upholds this wave pattern, but when you don’t move an area for a while the waves are lost, limiting it’s ability to store and release energy, making it a weak muscle.
This springiness is one of the most magical aspects of fascia— allowing athletes, dancers, acrobats, and animals to perform feats that cannot be explained by looking at the body in the reductionist view of muscles and pulleys.
The rebound quality in the tendons of animals like Antelopes, gazelles, kangaroos allow them to perform at levels far beyond their muscle strength could ever explain. Humans also posses this springiness, which is why we are able to walk with little to no energy loss— our highly trained muscle fascia storing and releasing the energy so efficiently in it’s wave like pattern.
The fascial network has a spring like quality when it is healthy- this is a quality we recognize in children, as they bound around with ease. In contrast, an elderly person who doesn’t move much is very stiff in comparison. It is possible to age and still have bouncy connective tissue, we just have to slowly allow the fascia to act like the spring it is! Imagine if you had a spring, if it’s too loose or too tight, it loses it’s bounce, it needs both to function well. If only a part of it functions well, it won’t be very effective either, so when we move, our goal will be to allow the whole body in different wave like patterns and spring like movements.
At first this might be really challenging- dry sponge analogy- be patient and gentle and loving with yourself! You can retrain your fascia in 6 months to 2 years, regardless of what age you are! Full disclosure- recording these movements i could see how uncoordinated I was in certain moments, or how asymmetrical they were and it was slightly upsetting at first. I could tell that becoming aware of a limitation in me was slightly uncomfortable, it can bring up emotions and energetic tensions.
The truth is, it is an incredible gift to discover these things before pain comes knocking at your door. Pain knocking is a gift too- both instances are an opportunity to start bringing more awareness to an area of the body or a type of movement. Sometimes the awareness is enough and just by paying more attention to that area, it naturally starts “coming online” to support you more. More support = more intelligent movement, more articulation, more control, and also more ease!
If you discover pain in a movement, this is a symptom of the nervous system telling you that something it wrong! A healthy movement is never painful. We must ditch the “no pain no gain” attitude in our yoga practice and always practice in a pain-free range of motion. There are a few instances when some mild pain is okay. Movement does often help injuries heal- example of Karalea knee surgery. Sometimes when I have a stiff neck, there is a level of pain when I practice, but ultimately practice helps. The thing to notice and consider is if the pain increases at any time during your movement- stop right away, if it increases after, that is also an indication that the practice harmed it and did not help. It requires much more awareness and sensitivity to practice with pain in a healthy way and I may not recommend this to all practitioners.