How Fascia Holds You Together

Fascia is a type of connective tissue composed of densely packed collagen and elastic fibers held in a gel-like matrix that stabilizes these fibers. It is a continuous, strong, resilient net that covers and holds everything in your body in place–-muscles, bones, organs, vessels, and nerves. It is like a three-dimensional piece of fabric that, through its balanced tension, creates and holds the shape of your body and organizes the relationships of its parts.

Myofascia also anchors your muscles onto your skeleton by interweaving itself with another layer of fascia - the top layer of your bones. This layer of fascia is like another type of fabric – the denser, harder wrapping of your bones called the periosteum. When a muscle’s fibers end, its fascial sheathing continues as a tendon and connects the muscle to this periosteal sleeve of the bones.

Fascia and muscles are completely integrated with and inseparable from each other. Fascia surrounds every muscle fiber, every bundle of muscle fibers, and the whole muscle. Because fascia and muscles (“myo”) are so entwined, together they are referred to as myofascia.

Fascia’s Adaptability

Muscle is contractable and composed of smaller segments that move discrete parts of our bodies, whereas fascia is sturdier and continuous, connecting the whole body.   So, while the muscles of the body control movement through contractions, it is the fascia that suspends the bones in place through tensile force, which then determines the alignment of your skeleton.  

Fascia also covers all of your body’s other structures, including organs, nerves, and vessels. All of your parts are packed inside you like sardines in a can. They press upon each other, finding space for themselves where they can. Fascia surrounds all of these structures, both holding them in place and separating them from their neighbors. 

“Fascia is the organ of structure.”
— Ida Rolf (developer of Rolfing)

In addition to holding tissues in place, fascia also functions as a communication network. By transmitting tension through its continuous fabric, it sends messages between muscles, bones, nerves, blood vessels, and more.  Evolving research suggests that the mechanisms at play transmit information faster than your nervous and endocrine systems. 

Fascia is also highly innervated, so you feel your fascia all the time through many of your internal sensations. This sensory information contributes to your proprioceptive sense of where your body is in space, and it helps signal where there arehitches or “red flags” in the system.  You can consciously bring awareness to this feeling sense through body-centered mindfulness and receiving bodywork. 

Fascia is malleable and responds to the demands placed on it. It adapts to trauma, repetitive activities, habitual postures and movements, and the constant force of gravity. Because of fascia's adaptability and its continuity, the whole body changes its shape to reflect the way in which we use it. 

Fascia’s adaptability is a good thing - it keeps us upright and, when necessary, protects vulnerable structures while they heal. Fascia is always creating a balance in the body, but the question is whether the fascia's organization of the body is efficient.

It might have organized well to get you through a sprained ankle, a broken arm, or the loss of a loved one, but perhaps has never released that pattern. It also might have organized well for sitting in a chair all day, but a sustained, invariable posture places unbalanced strains on your body. And because fascia is continuous and pervasive, a hitch anywhere in the fabric of your fascia can and does affect overall alignment.

Over time, fascial adaptations thicken and get sticky, creating adhesions between structures and tissues that are tightly packed together.  Structures that are meant to move independently, gliding past each other, no longer can do so.  This can restrict movement, change posture, and impede optimal function.  

When fascia changes, it reorganizes the relationships of your body parts. While the reorganization in response to injury or repetitive activity may allow you to continue walking, sitting, breathing, thinking, it also creates an imbalance of the fascial tensions that support your structure. This can easily lead to less than ideal posture and skeletal alignment.

How to Change Your Fascia

Because fascia is a membrane under tension, it responds especially well to pressure, stretching, and differentiation. Muscles, aka myofascia, appreciate being lengthened and freed from their surroundings and having their fibers disentangled and unbound from each other. Because fascia integrates into the structural scaffolding of cells, pressing and stretching fascia mechanically stimulates cells!

Many forms of bodywork and manual therapy work with fascia to improve your physical comfort and mobility. Rolfing, Hellerwork, and Myofascial Release target myofascia specifically to address and correct fascial dysfunction in the musculoskeletal system, while CranioSacral Therapy, Neural Mobilization, and Organ Manual Therapy target the fascial networks of the nervous system and organs of the body. 

Habits That Support Your Fascia

  • Stretching, especially holding stretches for long periods of time, helps your fascia change its length.

  • Using body-rolling balls or foam rollers lets you treat your fascia regularly at home.

  • Strength training bolsters your fascia's strength.

  • Eating an anti-inflammatory diet helps reduce fascial adhesions that develop in response to global inflammation. This means reducing or avoiding sugar, refined carbohydrates, and processed foods, and increasing your intake of vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds, whole grains, and high-quality fats, such as olive oil and avocados.

  • Drinking adequate fluids every day keeps your tissues well hydrated so sheets of fascia can slide against each other.

  • Drinking bone broth provides collagen and minerals for your fascial health. Supplements that may also support fascia include collagen, hyaluronic acid, vitamin C, and trace minerals. Chondroitin sulfate and glucosamine are supplements used for joint and cartilage health and may also be useful for fascia.

Fascia Resources