Today, a few words on fascia - one of the key mechanisms in our body. Probably most of you hear about fascia for the first time, and the only association is related to fascia therapy or "detaching the fascia" - slogans heard somewhere between physiotherapy offices.

I will not focus here strictly on fascia training. Designing a fascia training plan is not easy and requires much more specialised knowledge than can be read in a blog post. This entry aims to make everyone involved in aerial acrobatics aware of how our body works. After reading the text, I would like you to have a slightly broader view of how your body works and that your progress is influenced by practically everything you do. Starting with the amount of sleep you get, how much water you drink, how often you use foam rolling equipment, and how often you see a physiotherapist.

I will not focus here strictly on fascia training. Designing a fascia training plan is not easy and requires much more specialised knowledge than can be read in a blog post. This entry aims to make everyone involved in aerial acrobatics aware of how our body works. After reading the text, I would like you to have a slightly broader view of how your body works and that your progress is influenced by practically everything you do. Starting with the amount of sleep you get, how much water you drink, how often you use foam rolling equipment, and how often you see a physiotherapist.

1. What is a fascia?

Fascia is a relatively new discovery. Its existence was a known fact, but only in the last decade did it become more important. Technological development made it possible to examine and verify the relationship between the state of the fascia and general health. At the moment, the fascia is recognized as a separate organ in many circles.

But let's get to the point. Have you ever seen such a thin, gray and white coating on meat when you cut chicken? This is the fascia. Fascia is a connective tissue that "connects and disconnects" everything in our body. Yes, literally. The fascia at the same time binds everything together and separates it from each other - we can say that each of the constituent units of our body is wrapped in such a "fascial bag". If we removed everything from our interior and left only the fascia, we would get a detailed map of our body. Fascia also wraps around entire organs, bones and muscles and can be found in the middle of the muscle, i.e. the muscle fibres and so on. It's just everywhere.

A fascinating thing about fascia is that it responds to and remembers the history of our biomechanical loads. This quality is of great importance, as thanks to it by following the fascial changes, we can understand what actually happened to our body.

2. Why is fascia so important?

It is worth knowing how important fascia is for physical fitness. We already know that it is found around everything in the human body. Since it is everywhere, it probably has an important role to play;)

First, a new concept to help you understand what this whole fascia is actually doing. The functionality of the fascia is defined primarily by the so-called the idea of tensegrity.

Due to the fact that the fascia is everywhere in the body, it also participates in the process of movement, i.e. deliberate changes in the position of the body. The truth is that for movement to occur, muscle work is required, and consequently, joint work. It may be a surprise, however, that the greater amount of force that is transferred to further muscle parts, joints or bones is not transmitted by muscles, but through the fascia. The muscle transmits up to 40% of its contraction to the structural fascial connections with the muscles beyond. Interestingly, this relationship causes the force of contraction to be transferred also to the antagonists of working muscles - as a result, they are stiffer and provide greater stabilization / mobility during movement.

We can therefore speak of the human body as a transmission line of tensegative forces. This means that the real transfer of forces in our body does not take place (for example) on the muscle-muscle-joint line, but through the fascia. Taking into account the separating and connecting feature of the fascia, many pain phenomena can be explained, such as: "when I bend my knee in the bridge, my shoulder stops aching." This type of pain indicates the continuous transmission of forces throughout our body.

Let us distinguish four most important lines of transmission of mechanical forces using tensegrity:

• Latissimus dorsi + gluteus maximus = thoracolumbar fascia.
• Biceps femoris + fascia dorsalis = sacrotuberous ligaments.
• Biceps brachii + flexors carpi = bicipital aponeurosis.
• Gluteus maximus + lower leg muscles = fascia lata.

To be even more aware of how it works, you should know what the structure and morphology of our fascia are.

3. The structural structure of the fascia.

A healthy fascia has a crystalline, mesh-like structure - its shape resembles the texture of a stocking. This is due to collagen that evenly breaks down to form dimensional crystals. The fascia is a flexible structure and - as you already know - reacts immediately to mechanical stress. The structure of the fascia is related to our history of biomechanical stress, whether the fascia is healthy or not. The easiest way to imagine the work of the fascia is when you compare it to a blouse. If a stretched blouse is pulled in a specific place, so that we get a delicate excess of material - it will tighten the rest of it. This phenomenon is called adhesion. Adhesions occur when the fascia is functioning poorly, is tired or there is not enough water in it. Then our pretty mesh-like structure turns into an ugly ball, dragging the rest of the fascial structure with it.

At this point, I would like you to reflect on the essence of how our bodies work. If the transfer of forces in the body occurs through the fascia that wraps around everything, and a single adhesion in the area of - let's say - the shoulder blades may stretch the structure around the glute, which will ultimately affect the transfer of strength from the muscles and quality of movement ... We must completely change the perception of our body and start thinking more globally.

For example: the wrong choice of splits stretching technique may affect the stability of our ankle. This, in turn, will affect the knee - and may ultimately change the arrangement of our Adam's apple. I heard this example from my teacher at university and I liked it very much.

4. SO WHAT?

The fascia is important, it transmits strength, it stretches like a shirt, but so what? Considering what I have written so far, several conclusions should be drawn.

• If something hurts - the problem often lies elsewhere. Go to specialists, research, examine. When you come across a trainer who says you have to massage your armpits so your lower back doesn't hurt, or a doctor who treats shoulder pain in bridges through loosening your glutes - don't be afraid. They may be right! 
• Prepare the fascia just like everything else when warming up. After all, it is responsible for almost half of the work you will do in the next four hours. 

My favorite surprise exercise is SLAMP. Before doing the exercise - do a simple forward bend when standing. You will have a point of reference to compare later after doing the exercise ;)

How to do this exercise?

1. Sit in a staff pose and cross your legs. The legs are to be relaxed. If you are flexible, I recommend putting your ankles + feet on some small platform - a roller or a yoga block.
2. Do a gentle forward bend and catch as far as you can. Keep calm! If you reach the calf - grab the calves, if the ankle - then the ankles, if the fingers - then the fingers.
3. Raise your head while flexing your foot, tuck your head when pointing the foot.
4. Do 2 x 20 reps.
5. Get up and do a forward bend. The leg that was at the bottom should be warmer and more ready to go.

In this simple way you have prepared your nervous system and fascia for work. Just remember that the slamp effect is one-time only. This exercise is not intended to improve the ranges in the long term, only to prepare the fascia and nervous system for work.

Other important points:

• We're rolling! As I wrote before - the fascia immediately rebuilds its structure depending on its condition (which in turn is the result of our biomechanical loads). The fascia will then be reacting just as eagerly to rolling. Rolling will break down the fascial adhesions and help the fascia return to its mesh-like state.
• We drink a lot of water and get enough sleep. I still have to explain this point, because it does not logically follow anything I have written so far. 

To put it simply ... Fascia components include:

1. collagen (protein; responsible for the elasticity of the fascia),
2. hydrophilic protaglycans (protein; molecules that like water very much and willingly react with it, are responsible for storing water in the fascia, they act like collagen "sponges" ),
3. fibroblasts (cells of the dermis; responsible for the production of collagen, elastin and hyaluronic acid - substances of key importance for the proper structure of the skin).

If protaglycans have the ability to react chemically with water, it will mean that we are well-hydrated and that they can simply afford to do it. If this happens, the probability that the collagen will structurally form a mesh-like structure rather than knots is much greater. However, the amount of collagen is regulated by fibroblasts - depending on the hydration of the structures and the growth hormone that is produced during sleep! 

At this stage, that's it. We've covered quite a lot of new knowledge. I hope this information will motivate you to think a little differently about your body. If you want to learn more, especially about how the fascia regenerates and how the collagen is reduced - please contact me! Leave a comment and I will recommend specific materials 🙂

Emilia Dawiec