The site of pain is not always the site of the injury.
“Fascia tissue is a sticky, web-like substance that attaches underneath the skin and is literally everywhere in the body. It both separates and connects the muscles and the organs, bones, veins, and brain. It runs from head to toe, fingertip to fingertip, surface to deep. It has qualities like plastic wrap and can be likened to a giant spider web. Some have described the way it runs throughout your body like a system of highways on a U.S. map, with roads and complicated interchanges. It’s not just on top of everything; it’s under, in between, and throughout everything. If we were to extract the fascia system from the body fully intact, it would look just like a 3D cotton candy mummy. It exists as one single unit without interruption, penetrating, connecting, and separating every single part of the body. ” Ashley Black
- Fascia LOVES movement
- Fascia LOVES you to be hydrated
- If your biomechanics (movement patterns) are pretty crappy, your fascia comes to the rescue to hold everything in place. That is its job, and it does a damn good job, but we don’t want it to accumulate all on one area. For example, a Dowagers hump is a collection of fascia that collects at the back of the neck if someone’s heavy head is tipped too far forward for too long. The fascia comes to the rescue to help hold the neck in place. The problem? The fascia doesn’t have the same blood flow as muscles, and nerve function gets cut off. Using the actual muscles is so much better!!!!
- Fascia is like duct tape all throughout the body, so it can ball up and grab and trap things like toxins, lactic acid, medications and food additives. That doesn’t even include the emotions trapped in those areas!
- Working your fascia stimulates nerve activity and activates blood flow which awakens the unused portion of muscle. Newly accessed muscle fibers that haven’t been used in a while are tired, weak and droopy.
- Tight fascia disguises a muscle weakness. For example, if your hip is unstable, the brain will tighten and clamp down around the hips to stabilize. Something has to come in and save the day!
- Tight fascia can pull you out of alignment and cause restrictions elsewhere in the body. For example, if you pull a sheet on one end, it will affect the rest of the sheets evenness. It’s the reason someone can have a structural adjustment, then the next day be right back to where they started; the tight fascia pulls the body back out of alignment.
- When you reveal a weak atrophied muscle, that may have been asleep for years, you pump the area so full of blood that muscle fibers can grow. When you re-establish blood flow and neurological connection, it can help tone the muscle.
- If fascia is locked down, it’s the body way of screaming at you, which equals to PAIN sensations. In other words, “Stop what you are doing and pay attention to me!!! Let’s figure this out together!”
- Whatever you do from the outside, nothing will help until you have proper blood flow on the inside. (think face creams – you can put as much as you want on your skin from the outside, but until you massage the face and work the tissue, it won’t have the blood flow to keep the skin with healthy collagen to deliver vital nutrients to the cells).
- There are four types of fascia and even though they are connected as one, but are found in different parts of the body, with different compositions.
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Your body is made up of more than 37 trillion cells (blood, skin, muscle, and fascia). These cells are organized into systems. Fascia is a communication system that interacts with ALL the systems of the body. What is cool is that if you were to look at the matrix of a body and the organs, it is a web of fascia that holds up things like our organs. They don’t just suspend in space!
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Heating up fascia (sun, infrared sauna, exercising) changes the properties of it, making it more pliable to do manual therapy.
- Collagen fibers that lie down after a cut, injury or surgery, can be thick and quite uneven if not taken care of. That is why massaging and stretching the area, getting blood flow to the surface of the skin, and activating the nerves are important to avoid thick adhesions.
- We want springy complaint fascia, so it can respond and adapt to our movement better.
This picture was a game changer for me. What we don’t see underneath the skin is good blood flow to a muscle. It is being choked out by poor patterned fascia that is taking over the function of the muscle, but not functioning like a proper muscle does.
My personal goal in life:
To serve others in having a more vital, capable, and empowered lifestyle.
To have a plan for the future, to not dwell on the past, and to imbue joy in the present.
Lisa is a certified yoga instructor with over 20 years combined experience in both teaching and practice. She began to explore yoga after a car accident left her with multiple pains, nerve damage and weight gain. Having tried many other conventional methods of coping, nothing seemed to help her daily headaches and focus. After taking one yoga class, she was immediately rid of that days headache. It helped her cope with the day-to-day limited mobility. After a couple of years she was able to fully comprehend how yoga can help anyone and everyone. The slow transition, into this lovely science, all happened while she worked in the corporate world for 8 years. Having experience in the work force stresses and long work hours allows her to bring understanding and compassion into her teaching. She was able to practice yoga through her 3 pregnancies, and thankfully, teach through the last. This brings a whole new knowledge and focus on what is needed during pregnancy and the benefits of a good bond during gestation. She has taught prenatal yoga since 2003. She uses intuition as soon as a student arrives in the room, guiding students through brain mapping of isolated areas, activation, mobilization, and then adding strength. She likes to make the nervous system robust, and create a safe space for growth. Due to these aspects class is different each and every time, crafted to the unique needs of the students showing up as well as taking into account the weather, the community/world events, as well as the time of year.
