A knowledgeable hand is a powerful hand
Many of us know about our bones and many of us also know about our muscles, but what about our fascia? Oftentimes our joints and muscles are heavily addressed during treatments, but have you ever found your recovery to plateau at about 90%? How do we gain that last 10% and what is the missing link? There could be a dysfunction in your fascial system that was never addressed.
What is Fascia?
Fascia is made up of connective tissue and covers just about everything in the body. It encases muscle, organs, bones, nerves, intertwines with and embeds ligaments, joint capsules, and tendons. It helps hold everything together and provides a smooth pathway for tissue such as muscles and nerves to slide and glide during movements of the body. It also plays a vital role in force transmission as we perform global movements of our body.
What is Fascial Manipulation?
Fascial manipulation refers to a hands-on technique that aims to improve the movement and flexibility of fascia. Fascia is made up primarily of collagen and has several layers: superficial, deep, and visceral. Fascial manipulation primarily works on and treats the deep fascia.
Normal fascia should be flexible, able to be stretched and transfer force from one section of the body to another in order to facilitate proper movement of the body. However, when there is dysfunction in the fascial system, this is where problems arise. When the movement of fascia is compromised, the area of pain and discomfort may be felt further away from the actual site of dysfunction. This is typically when the root cause of a person’s pain is not addressed and the same type of pain and discomfort continually return every so often with temporary relief when the symptoms are treated rather than the cause. Sound familiar?
When used correctly, fascial manipulation is very effective
Is Fascial Manipulation Effective?
In short, YES (when used correctly)! An enormous part of fascial manipulation is the history taking and overall assessment. As therapists, we need to learn about your history of injuries and accidents from birth until current day. Oftentimes, clients don’t reveal some of their past injuries for multiple reasons: they don’t believe it has anything to do with the area of pain they are coming in for, it happened so long ago they forgot about it, or they no longer feel pain in the area they had an injury, so they don’t think it’s relevant.
To be most effective, fascial manipulation should be supplemented with education on proper movement and posture, muscle strengthening, and exercises to improve range of motion and strength. Though fascial manipulation improves the movement and flexibility of fascia, because the body has been moving improperly for so long compensating for this dysfunction, exercises need to be given to retrain the motor pattern on how to move optimally again after the treatment.
Wondering if Fascial Manipulation is the missing link to your issues? Come in for an assessment and treatment with one of our experienced physiotherapists at our Vancouver location. We look forward to meeting you!
With care,
Therapy X Collective