In recent years, the concept of caring for one’s fascia —
the tough, flexible tissue that surrounds and connects muscles, bones and
organs like cling wrap — has permeated fitness and wellness culture. Pilates
instructors and massage therapists offer to make fascia more supple, and
products such as foam rollers, massage guns, and “fascia blasters” claim to
help you improve your fascia health at home.
اضافة اعلان
“Fascia as a buzzword has really exponentially taken off,”
said Christopher DaPrato, a physical therapist at the University of California,
San Francisco, who studies the connection between fascia and athletic
performance.
Until the early 2000s, doctors believed fascia was just
packaging for more important body parts. Since then, researchers have
discovered that the connective tissue plays a vital role in how we function and
is key to flexibility and range of motion.
Emerging research suggests that caring for your fascia might
help treat chronic pain and improve exercise performance and overall
well-being.
“We’re still at the very, very beginning” of understanding
fascia, said Helene Langevin, director of the National Center for Complementary
and Integrative Health at the National Institutes of Health. “This is a part of
the body which we have neglected for so long.”
What is fascia?
Your body has two forms of fascia: dense and loose. Each
type is key to facilitating movement. Dense fascia, made of sturdy collagen
fibers, helps give your body its shape. It holds muscles, organs, blood vessels
and nerve fibers in place. It helps your muscles contract and stretch, and
stabilizes your joints. The more-slippery loose fascia allows your muscles,
joints and organs to slide and glide against one another like a well-oiled
machine.
How does fascia get damaged?
In 2007, an anatomy professor named Carla Stecco at the
University of Padova in Italy found that fascia is alive with nerve endings.
This means it can be a source of pain. The longer it is damaged or inflamed,
the more sensitive it becomes.
When you’re sedentary for a long time, fascia can shorten,
become overly rigid and congeal into place, forming adhesions that limit
mobility, said David Krause, a physical therapist at the Mayo Clinic. Over
time, inactivity can also lead fascia to reshape itself. If you spend most days
hunched over a computer, the fascia surrounding your neck and shoulder muscles
may change so that your posture becomes curved.
Fascia can also become damaged from repetitive movements,
chronic stress, injury or surgery — becoming inflamed, overly rigid or stuck
together. And it stiffens with age.
Finally, because it consists of a matrix of fibers, fascia
that is too short, stiff or sticky in one part of the body can lead to pain and
dysfunction elsewhere, by pinching or pulling in the wrong direction, Stecco
said. The body can also compensate by changing the way it moves, causing other
issues.
It can be tricky to determine whether pain is coming from
your fascia or from your muscles and joints. Generally, muscle and joint
problems tend to feel worse the more you move, while fascia pain lessens with
movement.
How can you care for your fascia?
The most effective way to keep your fascia sturdy and
elastic is to stay active. Experts also recommend a few things in particular.
Resistance training keeps fascia strong, Langevin said. “A
weak muscle is not going to do a great job at moving and mobilizing the
fascia,” she said, nor will stiff and congealed fascia help the muscle do its
job. “They need each other,” she said. “Once one starts improving, it helps the
other.”
Exercises that involve a range of movements — such as
dancing, jumping jacks, tennis and swimming — also help keep the fascia
lubricated, DaPrato said. Movements that involve bouncing are particularly
effective at keeping fascia healthy.
“Skipping, for example, is such a wonderful movement,” said
Robert Schleip, director of the Fascia Research Group at Ulm University in
Germany.
For those who haven’t been active recently, it’s important
to “be gentle with our fascia and to go slowly and try to reestablish the
movement that has been lost,” Langevin said. Dynamic stretching, which
contracts the muscle while elongating it, will benefit healthy and damaged
fascia alike. Try trunk twists, squats, or forward lunges. Consider seeing a
physical therapist who can offer hands-on treatment and guide you toward the
best program.
Along with moving, experts recommend sipping water throughout
the day, which can help fascia glide with ease.
Despite the popularity of tools and treatments that involve
applying pressure to fascia, research hasn’t yet proved their long-term
effectiveness. Foam rollers and percussion guns can temporarily alleviate
fascial soreness and improve flexibility by “changing some of the fluid
dynamics in that local area,” DaPrato said. If you choose to use a
self-massaging device, don’t overdo it: No evidence supports the recent trend
of “fascia blasting,” or aggressively manipulating fascia through the skin,
which can lead to bruising.
The same may be true for treatments such as myofascial
massage and cupping. If these treatments make you feel and move better, that’s
great, experts said — but simply staying active is the best medicine.
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