Bowen Somatic  Therapy

Fascial Release

Fascia, what is it and why it’s important

 

Fascial Release Sits At The Heart of Effective Manual Physical Therapy

 

If you’ve been researching physical therapy and you’re trying to decide which therapy is right for you, you will have probably come across the word fascia and the term fascial release. So what is fascia and how do you release it and why would you want to? 

 

Fascia is thin sheet like body tissue that permeates the entire body and importantly is continuous throughout the body. It exists in various forms and appears in many different tissues, for example if you look at a section of muscle; fascia wraps around the outside of the muscle and also within the muscle separating  bundles of muscles fibres allowing them to function and move separately. Importantly fascia doesn’t end where the muscle ends, where the various sheets of fascia emerge at the end of a muscle they join together and then blend into adjoining tissues whether that is another muscle or a joint and so it goes on blending, joining, separating and re joining continuously. An easy place to visualise and understand this arrangement is the calf, the calf has two muscles one deep and one superficial the fascia of both muscles merge to form the achilles tendon, that tendon then joins the back of the heel and beyond the heel it then becomes the plantar fascia on the bottom of the foot, which in turn transition into the tendons under the toes.You can in fact trace a continuity of fascia from the toes all the way to the cranium, no gaps just a continuous line of tissue. 

 

The four images below are a mixture of diagrams from two sources, one being “Anatomy Trains” a book by Thomas Myers first published around 2012 and the second source a Chinese Text called the Ling Shu, the earliest written records of which go back to about 600AD. The Anatomy Trains structures (in blue) were based upon detailed dissection, the origin of the Ling Shu physical model known as Jing Jin (in red) is less certain but it most likely derived from a mixture of knowledge gained through the practise of Yogic style exercise (Dao Yin) and the delivery of manual physical therapy (An Mo). Looking at the diagrams we can see that the two sources produced concepts of structure that are very similar and demonstrate the same continuity through the body.

 

 

 

You can find information on AnMo elsewhere on this website, you can read more about Dao Yin on my other site.

 

Fascia doesn’t just hold muscles and joints together it also spreads mechanical load across the body. The downside of this vital function is that a mechanical problem in one part of the body can manifest elsewhere, in therapy when addressing pain  an important point to remember is that where the pain is at is often not where the problem is, fascia is designed to spread load but that can also mean it spreads physical stress (and pain) to distant points.  

 

One of the aims of therapy and DaoYin (somatic yoga) is to “educate” fascia how to repair and grow where it is required so that it can absorb and spread load correctly. Movement restrictions caused by scar tissue is often the result of fascia repairing randomly and not in accordance with the load that is usually placed upon it. This happens when a limb is immobilised for too long following an injury such as a fracture. Fascial release and re education can produce great results over time for such conditions.

 

How Is Fascia Released?

 

Fascia can be released by either passive or active means. Passive methods include; Bowen Technique, Deep Tissue Massage or AnMo Chinese bodywork, can all be directed towards working the Fascia though generally An Mo is more specifically focused on Fascia, Bowen due to it being a lighter touch method is more often directed towards near-muscular dysfunction. Release techniques can involve direct hand pressure along or across the tissue in question or pressure combined with body movement to cause the fascia to move while under external pressure. This type of procedure is common in both AnMo and Deep Tissue Sports Massage.

 

Active fascial release is achieved through disciplined and mindful  physical activity. Dao Yin is a form of Yoga that was created in China over two thousand years ago, it was created to be both therapeutic and also beneficial for people engaged in extended meditation training. In this context “mindful” refers to the importance of carefully directing your effort and taking notice of the locations in the body that are impacted by engaging in a specific movement.