Staying Fit: Yoga, Rolfing and Fascia

Staying Fit: Yoga, Rolfing and the Elusive Cinderella Tissues by Eva Norlyk Smith, Ph.D.

Posted: 01/23/2012





Here are four fascinating facts about fascia:

1. All You Learned About “Muscles” Is Wrong A primary lesson emerging from new research into fascia is that all we learned about muscles is wrong. “That illustration in your doctor’s office of the red-muscled human body is a body with its fascia cut away,” says Myers. “It’s not what you look like inside, but it’s a lot neater and easier to study. And, it’s the way doctors have been taught to look at you.” We commonly speak about the musculoskeletal system, and the muscles attached to the bones of the body. But according to Myers, muscles in fact don’t attach to bones. Fascia does. “Muscle is like hamburger; it can’t attach to a bone,” says Myers. “There’s fascia going around and through the muscle. And when the muscle runs out, that fascia from the outside and the middle of the muscle spins into a tendon, just like yarn.” It may be useful for our thinking mind to dissect the body in to some 600 muscles and their tendon attachments to bones. However, the body doesn’t think in terms of 600 individual muscles. “Your brain does not think in terms of biceps and deltoids,” says Myers. “There is one muscle that exists in 600 fascial pockets. Ultimately, the brain creates movement in terms of large fascial networks and individual motor units, not our named muscles.”

2. Much More Than a Wrapping Material Fascia is not just a passive wrapping material, but a live, biological fabric, which directs the traffic of forces around the body, and responds and remodels itself as forces change. Some researchers, like Helene Langevin of the University of Vermont, suggest that the connective tissue network may function as a whole body communications system, which influence the function of all other physiological systems. How exactly such a whole body network would be communicating within itself is as yet unknown, and there may be several pathways. Langevin has developed evidence, for example, that the fascial network may correspond to the network of acupuncture points and meridians. In this framework, acupuncture needles produce cellular changes that propagate along connective tissue planes. A similar effect is created by the stretching of the connective tissue created by yoga poses or externally applied stretch and pressure during bodywork.

3. Redefining Chronic Pain In its healthy state, the fascial network stretches and moves without restriction. However, age, injuries, repetitive stress, poor postural habits and even emotional trauma can cause fascia to lose its flexibility and become tight and restricted. This helps stabilize the body in the short term, but unfortunately, it also locks you into a chronic strain pattern that can be hard to correct. Think of it like wearing a thin silk suit. If you pull on one part of the suit, the tension patterns will show up throughout. Fascial strain patterns translate through the entire body, and affect the structural network of the entire body. They may lie at the root of chronic pain issues like migraine headaches, chronic back pain, or fibromyalgia, or other pesky pain problems that just won’t go away. For this reason, bodywork techniques focusing directly on the fascia, such as Rolfing and myofasical release therapy, can sometimes stimulate tremendous physical and/or emotional release where other modalities come up short.



For more, see Tom Myers free report on YogaUOnline: 10 Tips for Fascial Fitness. The full interview with Tom Myers: Fascia, Yoga and the Medicine of the Future.


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