Fascia

Fascia is the organ of posture. Nobody ever says this; all the talk is about muscles.
Yet this is a very important concept...especially the anatomy of fascia.
The body is a web of fascia. A spider web is in a plane; our body's web is in a sphere.
We can trace the lines of that web to get an understanding of how what we see in a body works.
-Dr. Ida P. Rolf

Fascia is the type of connective tissue that covers the muscles of the body. It is composed of collagen, elastin and a ground substance of protein chains which produce a sol/gel substance. Fascia means band or bandage in latin. It gives the body it's form. Fascia forms and supports the body. It also restricts and provides boundaries. It covers the muscles helping to provide more strength. It helps in repairing the body. It can be in the healing process that the problems of pain in the body begin. The healing process itself can lead to adhesions in the tissue which bind and restrict movement and can lead to fibrosis.

"The fascia of the body is continuous from head to toe. You can travel from the top of your head to your liver, spleen or right malleolus (ankle) without ever leaving fascia. All the viscera during development in the embryo migrate and carry their fascia with them. Fascia glides easily when subjected to gentle traction. Inflammation, adhesion, postural stress and somatic dysfunction all interfere with the free gliding of the fascia". ~John Upledger

Wikipedia defines fascia as this:

A fascia is a connective tissue that surrounds muscles, groups of muscles, blood vessels, and nerves, binding those structures together like plastic sandwich wraps. It consists of several layers: a superficial fascia, a deep fascia, and a subserous (or visceral) fascia and extends uninterrupted from the head to the tip of the toes.

Fascia is the fascinating biological fabric and glue that holds us together. Long ignored, the fascial system is now getting its rightful due of attention, from both therapists and researchers. ~ Thomas Myers, Anatomy Trains

When you are working on muscles you are working on fascia. There is no separating the two.
Myofascial Pain and Dysfunction by Janet Travell, M.D, beautifully illustrates that there is a myofascial element to most everything as every muscle of the body is surrounded by a smooth fascial sheath, every muscular fascicule is surrounded by fascia, every fibril is surrounded by fascia, and every micro-fibril down to the cellular level is surrounded by fascia that can exert pressures of over 2,000 pounds per square inch. Therefore, it is the fascia that can ultimately determine the length and function of its muscular component.

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