What is Fascia?
A fascia (/ˈfæʃ(i)ə/; plural fasciae /ˈfæʃii/; adjective fascial; from Latin: “band”) is a band or sheet of connective tissue, primarily collagen, beneath the skin that attaches, stabilizes, encloses, and separates muscles and other internal organs.
Dictionary Says...
Encyclopedia Says...
noun, plural fas·ci·ae [fash-ee-ee] for 1, 3–5
fas·cias [fey-shuh z] for 2.
Architecture.
- any relatively broad, flat, horizontal surface, as the outer edge of a cornice, a stringcourse, etc.
- any of a number of horizontal bands, usually three in number, each projecting beyond the one below to form the architrave in the Ionic, Corinthian, and Composite orders.
Anatomy, Zoology.
- a band or sheath of connective tissue investing, supporting, or binding together internal organs or parts of the body.
- tissue of this kind.
Fascia
Answering this question is not as easy as it seems. It all depends on who you ask. There are many different anatomical or medical terms describing fascia tissue which can make describing fascia challenging to explain. In Latin, fascia means “bundle, bandage, strap, unification, and binding together.”
Some still feel Fasciology is a pseudoscience, while others are passionately convinced that the fascial system holds the key to many health mysteries. However, there seems to be a collective understanding of fascia that it is connective tissue, a communication system, and a fluid system.
After studying the fascial system for many years, trying to find solutions for my disabled body from JRA to a bone-eating bacteria, I decided to simplify what information I could pull together from the many different Eastern and Western philosophies I studied.
The following are “Ashley Black” terms I have made up to help unify the fascia conundrum into simple and digestible ideas. All the different explanations of fascia seem to be organized into these four types of fascia.
Three Types of Fascia
Structural
Inter-Structural
Visceral
Structural fascia is the fascia that lies just beneath the skin, or subcutaneous fascia. This picture shows the fascia of a chicken breast and the membrane of fascia it is lined with. Tom Meyers, author of Anatomy Trains, describes this as long strips of fascia and traditional textbooks might call this type of fascia a sheath, membrane, aponeurosis, superficial fascia, epimysium or dense connective tissue.
Inter-structural fascia is cobweb-like fascia that runs through the structures of the body including the muscles. This type of fascia is commonly referred to as myofascial tissue or “the fuzz” and traditional textbooks might call it interosseous membrane, intermuscular septa, perimysium, endomysium, loose connective tissue and more. What everyone seems to agree on is that this fascia is literally in every nook and cranny of our bodies penetrating virtually every structure such as the brain and joints.
Visceral fascia is jelly-like fascia that is found in our abdominal region. Most philosophies tend to agree on this type of fascia and actually call it visceral fascia. You have felt and seen this type of fascia if you have ever gutted a turkey and felt the goopy slime inside. Thatʼs the visceral fascia. It surrounds and penetrates the fat and organs in our bellies.
The Spinal Straw Fascia is where it seems Eastern vs. Western traditions are having a stand-off on what to call this. Even an untrained eye can see that the tissue looks like all the other fascia, yet most anatomy books call the three layers dura mater, arachnoid mater, and pia mater. For simplicity, I call it the spinal “straw.”
Fascia and Exercise
Whether you are a weekend warrior, lifelong exerciser, athlete, pilates gal, weightlifter, or yogi, this next bit will be of interest you.
As it relates to exercise, our fascia can become “jacked up” and become tight, restricting the performance of the muscles underneath. If you do high intensity workouts like running or lifting heavy weights with improper form, this will definitely cause your fascia to clamp down to protect the muscle underneath. Furthermore, if you do those workouts with any kind of alignment issue, such as a posterior pelvic tilt, hip jam, muscle imbalance, or shoulder impingement, that will also throw the body out of proper alignment and can be damaging to your whole fascia system. Chronic pain, frequent injury, inability to hold a chiropractic adjustment, lack of flexibility and decreased range of motion are just a few of the symptoms of jacked-up fascia.
Also, when fascia is tight, it restricts the ability of the nerves to signal properly. Nerves are the messengers that send signals from the brain to the muscles. When the signal is disrupted or gets choked out by tight fascia, the muscle output is lessened, and you can’t get as much out of your workouts. Fascia can also encase the muscles, not allowing the muscle “cuts” to show through. Furthermore, your muscles can become so encased with fascia that it can restrict or limit the size of muscle growth!
– – FAITH MOUNTAIN WELLNESS
That (information in the last paragraph above) is precisely why the FasciaBlaster was concieved and invented by Ashley Black. She has what she believed to be unnecessary pain in her body and she was cetain that there to be a way to get rid of it. Though her doctors told he that she would live with that terrifying pain for the rest of her life, by defying the diagnosis time and time again, Ashley did the research needed to learn about the possible restrictions of the fascia system in your body and how, when tight or not laying correctly, the fascia layer might be the cause of those painful moments. When Ashley realized what it was, she knew there had to be a way to stop the fascia layer from causing unecessary pain. Ashey, along with a select few clients that she was treating at the time, were the first guinea pigs for the FasciaBlaster tool when first invented. Ashley saw positive results and her pain calming all over her body. She knew then that the fascia in the body might be the cause of so much more than she every thought and after years of study and research the FasciaBlaster arrived on the market to great acclaim and has been helping people deal with their muscle pain everyday since!
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