Fascia, the connective tissue that holds together the body’s internal structure, really hasn’t spent all that long in the limelight. Anatomists have known about its existence since before the Hippocratic oath was a thing, but until the 1980s it was routinely tossed in the bin during human dissections, regarded as little more than the wrapping that gets in the way of studying everything else. Over the past few decades, though, our understanding of it has evolved and (arguably) overshot – now, there are plenty of personal trainers who will insist that you should be loosening it up with a foam roller, or even harnessing its magical elastic powers to jump higher and do more press-ups. But what’s it really doing – and is there a way you can actually take advantage of it?
“The easiest way to describe fascia is to think about the structure of a tangerine,” says Natasha Kilian, a specialist in musculoskeletal physiotherapy at Pure Sports Medicine. “You’ve got the outer skin, and beneath that, the white pith that separates the segments and holds them together. Fascia works in a similar way: it’s a continuous, all-encompassing network that wraps around and connects everything in the body, from muscles and nerves to blood vessels and organs. It’s essentially the body’s internal wetsuit, keeping everything supported and integrated.” If you’ve ever carved a joint of meat, it’s the thin, silvery layer wrapped around the muscle, like clingfilm.
Physically, it’s made up of collagen, though 70% of it is actually water – and it hydrates through compressive movement, which pumps fluid through the fascial layers, keeping them supple and gliding smoothly. It also contains nerve endings that allow it to sense movement, pressure and temperature – and can influence posture, movement and proprioception.
“It’s constantly talking to the brain about what the body feels,” says Kilian. “It’s not a thin layer – it’s a massive, functional sensory organ system that holds us together.”
Healthy fascia acts like a biological spring, recycling energy during movement and contributing to efficiency in running, jumping, and athletic power. This has led some movement coaches to suggest that you can harness its elasticity to be more explosive – “screwing” yourself into the ground to do more press-ups, say – but that’s not entirely true. “It’s not going to perform miracles for you or suddenly make you magically stronger,” says functional movement specialist and anatomist Julian Baker. “But if we keep it fluid and keep it moving, it will improve our quality of movement.”
Changing your default typing-at-desk position from time to time can really help. Photograph: Ekaterina Goncharova/Getty Images
This, really, is the key. Fascia’s nature means that it responds to what we repeatedly do, locking us into that set of movements and making anything else a little bit trickier. “Our bodies are smart,” says Kilian. “When we repeat the same activity, the body adapts to make it easier. For most of us, that means hours at a desk, hunched over a keyboard. Over time, we stiffen into that posture. So if you work long days and play cricket or tennis on weekends, you might feel it when you bowl or serve – your fascia has tightened from keeping your arms forward all week.”
The simplest way to start fixing this is to spend more time doing the sorts of movements you would otherwise do only occasionally. “I talk about it in terms of a circle of potential,” says Baker. “If I tell a group of people to raise their arms as far as they can, then take a breath and raise them higher, they’ll always go up another couple of inches – the reason being that we have an extended range of potential that we very rarely go into. That’s our circle, and as we get older, we stop moving, that circle gets smaller. As the circle gets smaller, our connective tissue starts to get smaller, and that starts to limit us in what we can do. If I’m 85 and I want to reach up and grab a cup off a shelf, it’s not necessary to have strong back muscles – I want a full range. Really, I don’t think there’s one range or one particular movement – the ultimate message is keep moving in as many different ways and ranges as possible.”
But fascia isn’t immune to problems, and dealing with them can be a frustrating process. Many issues that can arise with fascia won’t be clear on, say, an MRI scan – which is one reason that deep-seated structural problems in the body can be difficult to diagnose.
So how do you start to fix it? Up until recently, many answers to this question revolved around the idea of rolling the sole of your foot on a golf ball, or lying down on your side to roll your iliotibial band (a tough strip of connective tissue that runs up the outside of your thigh, from knee to hip) on a big knobbly cylinder, in a process sometimes called self-myofascial release. But that may not actually be all that beneficial.
“The current understanding is that you can’t truly ‘break up’ fascia in the way many people think,” says Kilian. “While rolling your foot can help by increasing blood flow and releasing tension, it’s important to look at the body as an integrated system. You need to consider the tension in your glutes, hamstrings, calves and back – not just the area where you feel pain. It’s the way all those muscles and fascial lines interact – or fail to – that leads to discomfort. In other words, don’t mistake the victim for the perpetrator.”
Baker has a slightly different take on why rolling might still get results. “If you put your foam roller on the ground and get down and roll your thighs every day for 30 days, nothing is going to happen to your fascia. But the fact is, you’ve got down on to the floor and got back up again. And that movement, where you’re likely to be moving your body in ways you otherwise wouldn’t have done for weeks or months, is the thing that is going to make the difference.”
There’s nothing like a good stretch. Photograph: gerdtromm/Getty Images/RooM RF
What does this mean for most people? Maybe that it’s worth trying rock climbing – Baker runs his own group for over-50s – or swimming, dancing or pilates, all of which move the body through uncommon ranges and types of rotation.
But if that’s all a bit strenuous, it might just mean taking the time to move more naturally. “Think about how a cat or dog stretches – or even how we naturally yawn and move when we’re relaxed on holiday, stretching our arms out,” says Kilian. “The body instinctively knows which directions it needs to move in to release tension and free up restricted fascia. Even something as simple as a long, slow, diaphragmatic inhale during a stretch can help lengthen the fascia and encourage the whole system to move more freely.”
There’s still a lot more research to be done: as noted, we’ve only just stopped throwing fascia away. But for now, just move as much, as often, and in as many different ways as you can.
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