Rehydrate Your Fascia: Simple Steps to Boost Flexibility and Reduce Pain

Dehydrated or damaged fascia causes adhesions or scar tissue.  Those adhesions and scar tissue causes constriction of movement and compression on nerve cells leading to chronic pain.

The fascia is your connective tissue organ.  It's that white membrane that surrounds everything in the body, holds everything in place, anchors your skin to your bones, transfers energy to your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and bones, stores 70% of the water found in your body and is often the missing link to solving chronic pain.

An adhesion or scar tissue will feel like a tight, knotted, muscle, but it's not the muscle.  It's the fascia surrounding the muscle.  Often times medical professionals don't understand this difference.  Doctors will prescribe pain medications, anti-inflammatories, or muscle relaxants without much success.  If it were truly the muscle that was knotted up, then these modalities would work.  

You can fix your fascia.

Employing the following strategies will get you moving better, rehydrate your body, and melt your pain away.

1. Compression - once you've identified the area of adhesion, provide compression using a ball or soft foam roller.  You are in effect squeezing the old water, metabolites, and toxins that have built up, out of the fascia tissues.
2. Friction - partnered with compression perform small friction-like movements to break apart the adhesion.
3. Water - drinking water is crucial after compression and friction.  Your body is now in a state to reabsorb fresh, healthy water back into the tissues.  The water binds to hyaluronan and is transported throughout your body carrying much needed hydration and nutrients.
4. Movement - your body was born to move.  It only takes 4 hours of not moving for your fascia to begin reshaping your body.  If you sit in a chair all day, your fascia will take that shape of the chair creating adhesions.  Get up and move around for 10 minutes every hour.
5. Consistency - it can take 7-14 months for your fascia to completely heal.  Consistency is key.  Performing these techniques 3 times a week will be sufficient in repairing the fascia.  It takes 48 hours for your body to complete the rehydration process, so rule of thumb is your never perform the techniques on the same area 2 days in a row.  

Want a hands on experience working with me?  Join my in-person classes every Thursday at Zealous Training Lab in Lincoln City, OR.  Click here to learn more.

Stay supple!

Nicole