Fascial Nerd (2026)

22/06/2021

Whether or not you subscribe to the biotensegrity model of biomechanics, one thing is true: the fascia responds to inputs from all directions. The fascial system is constantly measuring the pulls in the tissue and laying down collagen accordingly. ⁠⁠
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If you're only throwing strength at the problem, you're missing an opportunity to lower the baseline tension in the system, reducing the overall strain of the tissues and the forces needed to overcome the tension. On a micro scale, less overall tension means less fuel needed to operate the system.⁠⁠
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This is a rough idea for now, but it's something I think about a lot. Balance and equilibrium is a natural law. Thinking about how to achieve this in a biological system is very valuable. ⁠⁠
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This is what I think is seen in explosive athletes that have relatively little muscle mass. They have relatively little tension in the system, allowing them to be quick in all directions. ⁠⁠
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At some point, the muscle acts as a tensioner on the fascial system. It's the fascial system that allows the explosive and quick movements, not the muscles. When there is too much tension, injuries and lack of coordination of movement results. ⁠⁠
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If you work with athletes, address both. If you are a strength coach, find a few good manual therapists to refer to. If you're a manual therapist, find a good strength coach that understands there is more to performance than lifting weights.⁠⁠
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13/06/2021

Use it or lose it is a natural law. All biological systems operate on this principle.⁠⁠
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When I think about how I apply manual therapy to this model, I often talk about making a blank slate or canvas. Now, I'm thinking, I play the role of a landscaper. If your yard is overgrown, the first step is to trim everything back and create defined edges and pathways. ⁠⁠
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This is my goal with working with others. I clean them up a little bit, but they ultimately decide where the pathways go. The best clients are the ones that will take care of their own landscaping once they know how everything should be. ⁠⁠
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Working with others via movement or manual therapy is nothing more than seeing what the plan is for the system and helping the person execute that plan. Some people need more hand-holding than others. Eventually, I only want to see people when they're making changes to the way their yard is landscaped. ⁠⁠
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Did I take the analogy too far? ⁠⁠
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10/06/2021

When it comes to sports performance and injury prevention, coordination of the fascia is the key. Tune-ups and treatments can keep the fascia coordinated and functioning the way it needs to, especially for elite athletes. ⁠⁠
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You can't get stronger and faster if you're always recovering from an injury. You can't be on the field or court if you're always recovering from an injury. ⁠⁠
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Many of my patients anecdotally report the same results seen in this study. The better the health status of the fascia, the lower the chances of an injury where you'll miss time. ⁠⁠
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This is huge. Prevention is so much easier to treat, and so much easier both mentally and emotionally on the athlete than having to miss the opportunity to be a part of their team. ⁠⁠
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If you pay attention to any professional sports, you'll notice the incidence of non-contact injuries are resulting in higher and higher rates of missed games, competitions, and events. ⁠⁠
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Non-contact injuries are preventable. Achilles ruptures are preventable. Non-contact ACL tears are preventable. ⁠⁠
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Tweaks aren't injuries but they are pointing you in the direction of your dysfunction. This can also be treated to prevent that tweak from leading to a loss of time injury later. ⁠⁠
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If the fascia isn't treated after an injury, it will lead to other compensations and future likelihood of reinjuries. The guys with knee problems and elbow problems rarely have no previous histories of other injuries. Fascially treating injuries helps prevent future injuries related to the new compensations your body is forced to make. ⁠⁠
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Full disclosure, I practice exclusively Fascial Manipulation® manual therapy.⁠⁠
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DOI: 10.1016/j.jbmt.2019.01.001

07/06/2021

Let's take a look at the three main types of fascia. ⁠⁠
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The superficial fascia plays a large role in sensation. It deals with how you experience the things around you. Dysfunction in this layer can feel like stiffness in the skin, difference in temperature and moisture levels of the skin, and lack of or hypersensitivity.⁠⁠
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The deep fascia is all about mechanical movement. Deep fascia plays a role in coordination of segments of the body into a cohesive movement. Dysfunction of the deep fascia is mostly related to pain, both acute and chronic, lack of coordination, and range of motion deficits. ⁠⁠
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The internal fascia has to do with how our organ systems are functioning. Stiffness in the internal fascia can affect how each organ, gland, and vessel is doing its job. Most illnesses will have some level of internal fascia dysfunction. Whether or not that needs to be treated depends on the severity of the illness. ⁠⁠
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Within these layers are the lubricating and nourishing fluid which keeps every thing smooth and hydrated. Everything works together like a symphony being directed by the conductor that is our brain and nervous system. ⁠⁠
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The pictures are copyright © - Photography by Thomas Stephan.⁠⁠
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Summarized from "Acupuncture, Western Medicine, Fascial Manipulation" by Luigi Stecco⁠⁠
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06/06/2021

The third principle of fascia with no end in sight. ⁠⁠
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It's easy to see the fibers in the fascia and visualize the body wrapped in a web of collagen. It's less easy to also imagine that all of the fibers are bathed in a constant circulation of fluid. ⁠⁠
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Most of the manual therapy and rehabilitation on the fascial system is done on the fluid component, not the fiber component. Increasing the circulation and reducing the thickness of the fluid allows movement and stretch to occur which helps with the remodeling of the fibers. ⁠⁠
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The body is an ecosystem, not a machine. Everything relies on something else for proper function, fascia is no different. ⁠⁠
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03/06/2021

This is an overly simplistic model of what's happening in the fascia during stretching, and an incomplete one at that. ⁠⁠
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I want to focus on just the fibrous portion, the collagen fibers. When you stretch, at some point in the stretch, something has to stop it. The way people talk about stretching is generally focused on stretching the muscle. ⁠⁠
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If you look at how the tissues are arranged and the properties of the tissues, the possibility that the muscle is feeling the stretch is very low. In an active stretch this is different, but in a passive stretch, it has to be the fascia that's feeling the stretch. ⁠⁠
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This also doesn't take in to account the gliding properties of the tissues due to the extracellular matrix, or the lack thereof. ⁠⁠
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Next time you stretch, or don't stretch, think about your fascia and what's happening there. Think about the connection of muscles from one place to the next and the global nature of the stretch instead of an isolated muscle. ⁠⁠
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Stretch positions not muscles. ⁠⁠
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DOI: 10.3390/app11010307⁠⁠
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31/05/2021

Let's take a look under the skin of a grass-fed cow and draw some parallels to human fascial tissues!⁠⁠
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From my understanding, this deep fascia is of the epimysial variety. The fibers of the muscle and the collagen fibers are connected in line with each other. ⁠⁠
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There are portions of the tissue that have some aponeurotic fascia as well. Aponeurotic fascia is in parallel, meaning the layer of fascia runs over the top of the muscle tissue but doesn't have a strong mechanical linkage to the fibers themselves. ⁠⁠
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When training and stretching the tissues, the two different types of fascia behave differently. The epimysial fascia needs the muscle fibers to be activated in order to stimulate the tissue for remodel, as in the case of quick hopping or dynamic stretching.⁠⁠
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The aponeurotic fascia is stimulated even if muscle fibers are not contracted, as in the case of a static stretch. Stimulating the fascial network, therefore, requires more than just one method. ⁠⁠
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I'm always learning new things, and this is the best that I understand it currently. I'm always up for new information and discussion that can lead to different viewpoints. 🙏🏻⁠⁠
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30/05/2021

Let's talk about fascial remodeling!⁠⁠
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Thanks to the fibroblasts, fascia will "strengthen" when placed under tension. Because the orientation of the collagen fibers is in parallel to the muscle fibers in aponeurotic tissue, the fascia is stretched before the muscle. When this happens, a little bit more collagen is deposited in that area. ⁠⁠
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Your body wants to help in any way that it can. If it feels tension in certain directions, it will start to deposit collagen in those directions. When training the fascia, especially for sport, reinforcing those patterns matters. This is why posture matters in these contexts. ⁠⁠
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Fascia is continuous throughout the body. If your posture is suboptimal, you'll reinforce that suboptimal position. It's like your body is taking snapshots of your current posture, and helping you achieve those positions in the future. ⁠⁠
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The stretch does not have to be maximum effort to stimulate the fibroblasts. Repetitive and dynamic movements, in addiction to a static stretch, can stimulate the fibroblast. However, training in a slackened fascial environment, such as weightlifting only in the middle range of the movement, will have less of a stimulating effect on the fibroblast than working at or near the end range of motion in a movement, theoretically. ⁠⁠
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I'm always learning new things, and this is the best that I understand it currently. I'm always up for new information and discussion that can lead to different viewpoints. 🙏🏻⁠⁠
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27/05/2021

This is a difficult thing for me to say. As a manual therapist, I want my work to have an impact on the health and well-being of anyone I work with. I started doing this work to get people out of pain.⁠⁠
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I do think it's possible for 99% of people to be free from chronic pain, stiffness, or tightness. I also believe that a highly skilled manual therapist can make that easier to achieve than skipping manual therapy altogether. ⁠⁠
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The way I see it, I'm helping you get back to a certain baseline. I'm helping you hit the reset button on whatever ways you've used your body. I'm making it easier for you to include a variety of movement and loads in your life. ⁠⁠
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However, building a sustainable movement practice is the key to STAYING out of pain.⁠⁠
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If you crash your car into something, a mechanic can fix the issue, but they don't teach you how to be a better driver. Until you learn how to become a better driver, you will continue to scratch and dent your car. ⁠⁠
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By increasing your proprioceptive abilities, I can give you a better chance at listening to how your body can feel when it's functioning well. I can increase your likelihood of moving in ways that won't lead to accumulation of stresses that your body can't cope with. ⁠⁠
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Movement heals all. Manual therapy helps you get to moving well as quickly as possible. Manual therapy doesn't fix you, and it shouldn't be relied upon for that. Anyone who calls themselves a healer needs to examine their ego. ⁠⁠
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23/05/2021

It's time to start talking about the practical applications of what's going on in the fascial tissues and why it matters. So why does fascial and tendinous tissue strength matters in an athletic sense?⁠⁠⁠⁠
Most of the information about fascial training is geared toward pilates and dance style movements. I'm not interested in that, and I'm a tired of seeing that as the main influence in fascial training. Let's start talking about how to make it more applicable to sport training and performance. ⁠⁠⁠⁠
Thinking about explosive movements really lets the function and importance of the fascial system shine. Later I'll discuss WHY it's important to move quickly through the prep phase. For now, just think about how a lot of speed and jump training focuses on minimizing ground contact. ⁠⁠⁠⁠
Loading the tissues quickly is important to maximize the amount of amplification the fascial tissues can contribute to the movement. However, the fascial tissues need to be able to cope with the forces that the muscles produce during the eccentric loading phase to prevent injury. ⁠⁠⁠⁠
This is why training that focuses on the connective tissues is important. The stronger the tissues, the stronger the elastic recoil. Directionality of training also matters, but that's also for another day. Just know, if you spend a majority of your time training in the sagittal plane but your sport requires other planes, you will get hurt in one of those other planes eventually. ⁠⁠⁠⁠
I'm always learning new things and this is the best that I understand it currently. I'm always up for new information and discussion that can lead to different viewpoints. 🙏🏻⁠⁠⁠⁠
photo from https://www.ndsu.edu/pubweb/~tcolvill/dense.htm⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

20/05/2021

I'm diving deep down the training rabbit hole and trying to make some speculations based on other connective tissue research. ⁠⁠⁠⁠
Tendons are a popular area of study. If you think about tendons as a form of fascial tissue specialized in transmitting forces from the muscles, you can start to draw these conclusions out to other fascial tissues. ⁠⁠⁠⁠
In fascial tissues, it looks like the magnitude of the tension isn't as necessary as the existence of the tension in the first place. ⁠⁠⁠⁠
Now, it's hard to say what the lower limit is, as far as stimulation of the tissues, but dialing it back to lower intensity might have more value than originally believed. If the intensity can be reserved for other training or, in the case of recovering from injury, for minimizing the total load on the body. It might also minimize aggravation of an injury. ⁠⁠⁠⁠
Again, this is speculation based upon principles of how collagenous and fascial tissues might respond to training. There isn't enough evidence currently available to support or refute these claims. I'm hoping that this will get people thinking about how to study these ideas so we can see high quality research or even clinical evidence in management and prevention of injuries. ⁠⁠⁠⁠
I think the fascial system has a huge upside for making people more resilient, leading to fewer non-contact injuries and more training and game days. ⁠⁠⁠⁠
I'm always learning new things and this is the best that I understand it currently. I'm always up for new information that can lead to different views. 🙏🏻⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

17/05/2021

One of the most interesting aspects of the human fascial system is the ability to respond to different hormonal stimulus. Like most things, when it comes to the fascia, women are not just small men.⁠⁠ ⁠⁠
Women suffer ACL injuries at much higher rates than men, and I don't believe it's all due to a different q-angle. Force production doesn't change much during the cycle but the fascial system does. ⁠⁠ ⁠⁠
A change in the rigidity of the fascia means mechanoreceptors are activated differently, leading to different neuromuscular ability depending on the levels of estrogen. It also means that aggressive cut needed during a game might be less effective or more dangerous at certain points of the month. ⁠⁠⁠⁠
If you are a woman or work with women who push their physical limits, training like a man isn't going to cut it for optimal performance. Hopefully more light is shed on this issue soon. If you're interested in a more general approach to nutrition and performance for women, check out "Roar" by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Fascial Nerd