25/04/2025
So what is Fascia?
Fascia or, our body’s connective tissue is the network of fibrous connective tissue. You’ve seen it when you skin a chicken breast—the filmy layer between the skin and meat. Fascia used to be removed during dissection to see the “important” stuff: the muscles, organs, bones, nerves, arteries, etc. We know now that fascia is the important stuff because it forms a complex network that reaches everywhere in the body. Fascia is all the soft connective tissue including fascial sheets such as the plantar fascia, the tendons, ligaments, bursae, the fascia in and around muscles, and the membranes around the brain, spinal cord and nerves.
If everything was removed from your body except the fascia, the shape would still be recognizable as you. Fascia is what actually holds us up and together (not muscles and bones), so understanding fascia is essential to understanding movement. The fascia’s most obvious job is to help body parts move together as it wraps around layers of muscle to slide easily as they contract and release (flex and extend). Besides movement and flexibility, fascia maintains equilibrium (balance and functionality). Fascia’s other job is to guard injured tissue. When trauma or stress occurs, the web of connective tissue changes to protect the injured area; it also holds emotions from trauma and shock or stress. Healthy fascia enhances proprioception (knowing where your body is in space.) As one of the largest sensory organs m, it is a major communication network within the body.
