Fascial Health
Stretch, Mobility and Fascial release

Fascia means “band” or “bundle” in Latin. It’s mostly made of collagen. Ideally, your fascia is healthy and therefore malleable enough to slide, glide, twist, and bend, pain-free.

​

Mobility = the ability to move or be moved freely and easily.

"this exercise helps retain mobility in the damaged joints"

Similar: ability to move, movability, moveableness, motility, transportability, portability, manoeuvrability, adaptability, flexibility, versatility, adjustability.

 

Physical mobility refers to the ability of humans to move around their environment. The lack of mobility due to aging, physical disability, physical or mental disorders can be an important factor in restricting people’s lives to narrow boundaries, academically, socially and in terms of the activities of daily living, exercise and performance.

​

With fascia being the new go to word in the sporting industry, we need to pay more attention to it even if you are just sitting in front of a computer the whole day.

Fascia doesn't stretch but it moulds in the way you move, sit, stand, or lie everyday. When certain areas in the body gets dry, it causes restrictions in fascial tissues and decreases the ability of your muscles and other tissues to glide over each other as fascia contains a lot of fluid, or it's supposed to if you look after it.

​

If you don't move enough or have compensated movement patterns your fascia moulds into that shape. See it as your wet suite. You need to keep your wet suite hydrated and moving otherwise it can get dry and perish. 

​

Looking after your fascia you need to move often, drink enough water and boost it with collagen and Vitamin C.

​

UNHEALTHY FASCIA AND SYMPTOMS

Impaired Physical Mobility is characterized by the following signs and symptoms that you can use in the assessment:

• Inability to move purposefully within the physical environment, including bed mobility, transfers, and ambulation

• Inability to perform action as instructed

• Limited ROM

• Reluctance to attempt movement

 

There are a few leading reasons why fascia becomes dehydrated and inflexible:

• Limited physical movement in daily life

• Repetitive movement that overworks one area of the body

• Trauma to the fascia from an injury or surgery

• Proper hydration is a component of overall good health, including caring for fascia. Drinking water helps maintain healthy fascia but drinking alone will not do the trick. Movement must be a part of fascial fitness.

• unhealthy eating habits

• poor sleep quality

• stress

​

At TLC we use foam rollers, massage balls and breathing techniques to firstly break down any scar tissue, hydrate dry areas and create space within the fascial layers so that water as its lubricant can move through to all the areas of the fascia.

​

Common areas that tend to dry and what we call "get locked in short" is the chest area and the hip flexor areas. Then the back and glutes tend to get locked in long and is usually weaker.  Each person is unique so we work according to your assessments. We need to loosen up the shortened dry sections and we need to put strength back in the lengthened weak sections. We also need to release any scar tissue as it can also effect fascial restrictions and be part of pain and discomfort in other areas of your body.

The symptoms is where the problem lies.

​

This will improve posture, decrease lingering and chronic pain and the risk of injuries or recurring injuries.

​

Muscle activation is also achieved through breathing with movement and using tools like loop bands and body weight exercises.

Below is a couple of examples done in a session.