What’s the Big Deal about Fascia?

As far as I’m concerned, everyone with a body needs to know about fascia – especially everyone with a body who has pain. 

Fascia can be a complicated thing to conceptualize, so I’ll start with the basics and go from there.

The first question about fascia: what is it?

Fascia is a connective tissue that is comprised of mostly collagen.  The fibers of the fascia form dense bands and sheets that wrap around our muscles and organs to keep everything in neat, little packages.  Essentially, fascia is like a plastic wrap for our body.  In addition to being plastic wrap, fascia also serves as a mechanism to distribute forces of muscles and external stresses and reduce friction in our bodies.

For many years, fascia was thought of as fairly unimportant to how our bodies mechanically function; muscles and bones took the lead in mechanical functioning, fascia just supported the body in a passive way and held stuff...

10 Best Areas to Benefit From Do-It Yourself Myofascial Release

We’ve had previous blog posts about the benefits of foam rolling and Myofascial Release treatment from a trained practitioner, but what happens when you need treatment ASAP and the foam roller just isn’t hitting the right spot, or you’re traveling and want a more convenient solution? Enter the amazing TENNIS BALL. A tennis ball is an inexpensive, easy, and effective way to give yourself a localized deep tissue massage and it is great at targeting smaller areas that a foam roller may not quite get to.

How to use it?

Place the tennis ball onto a knot/tight/sore area of your body. Once the tennis ball is in place you can apply deep, consistent pressure, or you can slowly rock side to side over the area. You can lie down on the floor using your arms to support you if need be, or you can stand up against a wall when targeting your neck, shoulders and back.

A few other guidelines to consider 

1. Hold the...

Myofascial Release

Many clients come to us for myofascial release or “MFR,”  but what exactly is it and why is it such an amazing method for physical treatment and pain relief?

 It is a soft tissue therapy for the treatment of skeletal muscle and fascial immobility and pain, and is a safe, gentle and effective means of therapy in providing lasting results.

Fascia is a thin, tough, elastic type of connective tissue that covers all organs and muscles within the human body.  Like a continuous spider web, fascia supports and protects these structures from head to toe.  However this soft tissue can become restricted due to overuse, trauma, infectious agents, inflammatory responses, surgical procedures, or inactivity, often resulting in pain, muscle tension, and corresponding diminished blood flow. These myofascial restrictions can produce tensile pressures of approximately 2,000 pounds per square inch on pain sensitive...