Fascia

It’s tough to talk about fascia without getting a little into technicalities. Yet this topic is important enough to warrant a little discussion on it. Bear with me.

No more pegs

Most fitness coaches, personal trainers and even medical professionals have traditionally looked at parts of our body separate from the other. In fact, we usually look at muscles, for example, as the origin and the insertion of the muscle to learn what it can do.

However, in the past decade or so, researchers are learning that there is a lot more to movement than just where the muscle starts (the origin) and where it ends (the insertion). This is because of a certain thing called fascia.

Fascia is a band

In Latin, “fascia” means “band”, although it is so much more than that. More than just a “stocking” around each muscle and our whole body, it is ubiquitous in our body. Fascia is a continuous 3D matrix of support around our organs, muscles, joints, bones and nerve fibres (Price, D. “Eight Fascinating Facts About Fascia” Idea Health & Fitness Assoc).

What does it do?

Aside from holding your body upright whenever you defy gravity (which is all the time), fascia is a force transmitter. When you run, every time your foot strikes the ground, about triple the force hits your foot and back up into your body again. The force is transmitted and dispersed within the body primarily via the fascial network (so long as the force is not overwhelming).

In this sense, fascia prevents or minimises stress in a particular muscle, joint or bone, thereby protecting the integrity of the body.

Fascia also can act independently of the central nervous system. To put it simply, connective tissue has 10 times more proprioceptors than muscle, which is why the fascial matrix reacts to our environment faster than the conscious mind can respond, for example, righting a crooked ankle before we fall while running.

And just as a side note, recent research into fascia also reveals that this amazing tissue stores your emotions! (Shultz and Feitis, “The Endless Web: Fascial Anatomy and Physical Reality” (North Atlantic 1996).

What can runners do to have healthy fascia?

So you can see why fascia is fascinating to people within the sporting industry. Healthy fascia keeps you moving swiftly and efficiently, while unhealthy fascia might cause knots in certain body parts which affects your whole body’s performance. Unattended, this could lead to pain or even injury.

The thing about fascia is that repetitive movement in the short term is good. It helps to re-model the fascia along the lines of the desired movement so that fascia becomes stronger when dealing with forces from that movement (e.g. running). In the long run, however, fascia will become stiffer along these lines of stress, but weaker in other activities. This could cause more tears in the fascia itself or stiffness in the joints when moving in different directions. It should be noted that this also applies to non-movement, e.g. sitting or standing.

REMEMBER THAT THE FLOOR IS JUST A DESTINATION. IF YOU CAN’T GET YOUR HEELS DOWN WITHOUT COMPROMISING YOUR BACK, THERE IS ALWAYS TOMORROW.

Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward-Facing Dog)

1. On your mat, go on all fours, with your wrists under your elbows and your elbows under your shoulders. Likewise, stack your knees under your hips.
2. Open up your palms, trying to get the elbow creases to face the direction of the opposite thumb (right elbow crease towards left thumb, for e.g.). Curl your toes under.
3. With an inhale, gently arch your back, lifting your sit bones upwards (anterior arch of pelvis), then with the exhale, lift your knees off the mat, drawing your hips upward and backwards (rather than just up).
4. Keep your ribs close to your thighs with the knees bent. Think about extending your spine, rather than round off the back.
5. If you can maintain a straightish spine, slowly lengthen your heels to the floor. Remember that the floor is just a destination. If you can’t get your heels down without compromising your back, there is always tomorrow.
6. Once in your expression of this pose, try to keep the belly concave, keeping your breaths even. Stay from anywhere between 30 seconds to a minute to start with.

Parivrtta Trikonasana (Revolved Triangle)

1. Start in Tadasana / Samastithi (see Issue 1). Exhaling, step your feet about 3½ to 4 feet apart. Raise your arms shoulder height, parallel to the floor, keeping them active. Rotate your left foot in 45 to 60 degrees to the right and your right foot out to parallel to the mat. Align the right heel with the left heel. Activate the front thigh, aligning the centre of the right kneecap with the centre of the right foot.
2. On the next exhale, rotate your trunk to the right, squaring your hips to the front of your mat. As you bring the left hip around to the right, firmly ground theOn the next exhale, rotate your trunk to the right, squaring your hips to the front of your mat. As you bring the left hip around to the right, firmly ground the left heel.
3. On the next exhalation, rotate your trunk further to the right and fold forward over the right leg. If you can, place your left hand down, either to the floor (inside or outside the foot) or onto a block. When you are ready, extend the right hand upward, keeping your eye gaze to the floor or to the right. If comfortable, look up to the right hand.
4. Stay in this pose for 30 seconds to a minute to start with. Then repeat on the other side.

Bharadvajasana I Bharadvaja’s Twist

1. Sitting on your mat with your legs straight out in front, shift onto your right, bend your knees and swing your legs to the left. Have your feet on the outside your left hip, with the left ankle resting in the right arch of the foot.
2. As you inhale, lift through the top of the sternum to lengthen, then exhale and twist to the right, grounding well on the left buttock.
3. If possible, tuck your left hand under your right thigh, while placing your right hand to the floor just beside your right buttock or beyond. Keep your left shoulder and chest open and broad, pressing your shoulder blades firmly against your back as you continue to twist.
4. With your inhalations, keep lifting through the sternum, and with every exhalation twist a little more.
5. Stay for 30 seconds to 1 minute, and then repeat on the other side.

Janu Sirsasana I Head-to-Knee Forward Bend

1. Sit on your mat with your legs straight in front. Bend your right knee, and draw the heel back to-ward your groin. Allow the knee to externally ro-tate so that your right foot rests against your inner left thigh, with the shin at a right angle to the left leg.
2. As you exhale, turn your torso slightly to the left, so that your sternum is directly in line with the middle of the left thigh. Your inhalations should be used to help you lift your spine taller.
3. When you are ready, exhale and extend forward from the groins. Be sure not to pull yourself forcefully forward or downward, avoiding any hunching of the back or shortening the front torso.
4. Stay here from between 1 to 3 minutes. As you inhale, Stay here from between 1 to 3 minutes. As you inhale,  come up and repeat the process on the other side.

Daniel Chandranayagam is a yoga teacher, certified by Manasa School of Yoga. He is also an ACE certified personal trainer (T158691), working as a personal trainer and boot camp coach. Beginning his career in writing, Daniel decided to diversify into one of his life passions, fitness. Daniel begins a Yoga for Runners programme beginning from 2nd April 2014 at Manasa, SS2 Petaling Jaya. For more information, you can email him at dchandranayagam@gmail.com