Image from: ” The Architecture of Human Living Fascia” by Dr. Jean-Claude Guimberteau and Colin Armstrong.
2 Minutes
What Is Connective Tissue?
“Connective tissue is the most abundant of all tissues, forming a continuous network throughout the body. If all other tissues was removed, connective tissue would form the three dimensional framework of the body. It helps support, surround, and interconnect various organs and tissues.” The Massage Connection Anatomy and Physiology, Second Edition. (pg.34-35)
What is Fascia?
Connective tissue fibers that interlace, forming the netting or the network that provides the structure of our body. They are the fibers that connect all systems or rather the glue that supports and binds all structures within the body. Fascia is deeply involved with our bodies. Its fibers reach deep into and throughout our cells, effecting the functions from within their membranes. Does that mean massage can even effect us at a cellular level?
Why is Fascia beneficial to massage?
If there is a system that binds all structures within the body, any bodywork that changes it’s constant state, changes or effects the whole body. Massage’s influence on the body is not just local but global as well, because of the manual effects we have on the fascial system, a system that most of us do not consider while receiving bodywork.
What have been my own personal experiences while working with fascia?
I have had many anecdotal accounts from clients who can feel other parts of their body being affected or worked on, while I am working a specific trigger point somewhere else. I have also experienced similar moments while receiving bodywork and have felt sensation in opposite points in my body that would seem to have no relation to the work I was receiving at the time. But these points do relate. There is a system that would allow such moments to occur. It may seem like magic but really the whole body is connected, and to continue to view the body as parts and pieces does not serve our health and well being long term.