The giant spiderweb in your body
There’s a giant web-like structure in your body – supple but incredibly strong, it’s truly one of nature’s miracles. But where’s the spider?! Your life force is, in a way, the spider – the intelligent energy which created and now maintains this webbing. It’s called fascia, a relatively new discovery for the mainstream although it was written about over 100 years ago.
It’s everywhere inside your body, wrapping around muscles, organs and creating the different ‘spaces’ within your body. It functions as a containing wrap to keep things in place – binding groups of tissues so they are held together but not joined. For example the way your muscles are made up of lots of tiny fibres that are grouped together in bigger bunches which in turn make up what we think of as one muscle.
Fascia isn’t just packaging like cling film, it’s alive, it senses and responds to whatever we do. For example if we don’t exercise our bodies the fascia can become more viscous, stagnant if you like. It loses its suppleness causing us to feel ‘old’ as we attempt to get our bodies into motion. For this reason fascia is also important to the transport system of our body – there’s a busy network of coming and going (nutrients in, waste products out) for all cells. If the fascia is stuck it causes traffic jams on the cellular level – it’s pretty obvious that restricting this movement is going to cause irritation, pain and degeneration just like a bad traffic jam does.
Fascia is made of collagen – a protein that is the major component of most of our tissues, for example bones, muscles, tendons, ligaments and skin. It has superhuman strength but remains very mobile and is fully connected throughout the body. Just consider that for a moment – there’s a giant elastic web that’s essentially one piece, covering your whole inside body like a sort of uniquely fitted glove! Have you ever felt sensation in a far away part of your body when you bump, press or massage another point? This incredible web – called connective tissue for a reason – is the reason why.
Stretching the muscles also pulls on the fascia, maintaining the flexibility of the web as well as the muscle fibres themselves. The non-daily movements and positions we assume in yoga act as a counterbalance for certain fascial patterns we’re encouraging with our most common routines, making sure those parts of the fascia don’t become hardened. For example, if you spend most of the day sitting or a lot of time repeating the same motions (driving, lifting or typing for example) the fascia strengthens the pathway of those movements or stances, sometimes to our overall detriment.
Stiffness that we feel may be due to ‘tight’ muscles but there are also layers of other tissue, including fascia, that can hold tension, become ‘stagnant’ or ‘stuck’, or include fibres which have formed along unhelpful lines. The truth is, we still don’t understand all this very well and finding language to express exactly what’s going on is difficult! However, researchers, physical therapists of all kinds and yoga teachers experience for themselves and the people they work with, that the movements of whole body practices that involve stretching, twisting or pressing can release this feeling of tension and restore tissue health and function.
As you practice yoga (or do any full body activity like dancing or swimming) you may be able to feel this whole-body web. For example, in a downward facing dog, starting at the fingertips, take a deep breath and move your awareness up through your arms, into your shoulders and neck, down your spine, around the hips and down the legs into the soles of your feet. Try this a few times with a big breath, pushing hands down, lifting belly button to spine with active toes to get a sense of connectivity throughout the body. Once you’ve felt this, try it with more complex asanas with twists and holds or balances.
This is a very brief dip into the world of fascia just to get you thinking - please dive into research/information yourself; here are some of the sources I used for this blog and for my own learning:
https://www.anatomytrains.com/fascia/
https://www.bodyworkmovementtherapies.com/article/S1360-8592(13)00082-X/fulltext
https://www.yogajournal.com/teach/what-you-need-to-know-about-fasci
The Complete Guide to Yin Yoga – Bernie Clark
Your Body Your Yoga - Bernie Clark
By the way, I’m not a scientist so while I did my research as thoroughly as possible, if you are, then please excuse any mistakes I may have made!