BRENDA, WHAT IS FASCIA?

I get asked this question often, it seems like a confusing term and there are a lot of different health care practitioners who use this terminology.

Let me back up a bit. I am a sixth generation Texan, raised in the Hill Country next door to my German grandparents, Oma and Opa. I thought everyone had a smokehouse and made deer sausage at home. When I went to college, I realized that was not the case for most people.

I became a physical therapist in 1997, and in 2003 took my first Myofascial Release course from John F Barnes, PT. His definition: Fascia is a three-dimensional web of connective tissue that spreads throughout the body from head to toe with no interruption. It surrounds, penetrates, and nourishes every part of the body from muscles to organs and every cell in the body. Trauma, poor posture, surgeries, and inflammation can cause a binding down of the fascia resulting in fascial restrictions. These restrictions produce excessive pressures on body structures resulting in chronic pain and issues that many standard tests, such as MRIs or X-rays, do not detect.

My take-home concept of what fascia is relates back to working with my grandparents and that deer sausage. When the animal is freshly harvested and still warm, that connective tissue/fascia is well hydrated, strong and pliable. That connective tissue runs head to toe and resembles a spider web, wet with morning dew. Once that meat has been in the cooler, that connective tissue becomes dehydrated and thickened. If you have ever trimmed a brisket or worked with raw chicken meat, you know how gristle or thickened fascia looks and feels like.

When we have scar tissue, or injuries, we basically have gristle, or thickened areas of connective tissue putting pressure on whatever happens to be underneath that (nerve, artery, muscle). When I was in physical therapy school taking Gross Anatomy, the professors instructed us to “cut through all of that” fascia because we needed to get to the important tissues, and I believe that gave us a bias to ignore the fascial system.

For a multitude of reasons, it can be very frustrating to deal with the medical system, but when someone has chronic pain and all the diagnostic testing comes back “normal,” it can cause people to lose hope.

John Barnes Myofascial release is a great tool in the toolbox of self-care and wellness for a variety of symptoms. This technique works with your tissue, waits for it to release, then goes to the next barrier. It is very different from a practitioner with an agenda who bulldozes through your tissue to force it to relax.

I want to encourage anyone who has a complicated or chronic medical issue to search for a practitioner who is there to help you along your journey, not to give up, and find what works best for you!! You are worth it!

Blessings,

Brenda Bryson, PT, LMT