Old and Dry or Keeping Young and Juicy? 50 Day Blog - day 40

The other day (How Spongy Are You?) I mentioned a quote that was something about 'we don't get old, we just get dried out', not remembering it exactly, or who said it.

Having found the quote and the quotee I am slightly ashamed not to have remembered that it was one of the Kings of the Fascia World, Thomas Myers, who said (and I can now quote correctly):

"ageing can really be considered a process of drying out".

I love this quote, as it is so simple, yet so true. 

As we get older we dry out. There's no denying that. Depending on your age, activity levels, self care and health you may feel that your skin is losing some of its elasticity, you may have wrinkles, you may have more stiff (dried out) bits!

  

BUT..... we do have some control over the extent and rate to which we dry out! 

You've heard me talk before about the importance of hydrating your tissues, but Tom puts it really simply in this lovely little youtube clip below. 

Simply put we need to:

1. Move

2. Vary our moves

3. Work on our tissue and / or work with a practitioner who can help you with this

4. Rest!!!  Ah, yes, rest.... (let me come back to that one another day in more detail!)

Please enjoy Mr Thomas Myers: 

 Til tomorrow :-)

CT :-) X

Related Posts:
Fascia Rock N Roll
Fascia Fascia Fascia
Here's Where We Start With Fascia
What Fascia Likes, What Fascia Don't Likes
How Spongy Are You?

Relax your back! 50 day blog - day 39

I talked yesterday (Your Wonderfully Designed Spine Wants To Move) about spine flexibility and the importance of freeing up more of its full movement and articulation. 

One of the best places to start, is to actually let your back relax! This takes away some of the holding or guarding that we may unknowingly carry out and the release in tension gives our nervous system a calmer and safer feeling place to start from, opening up the possibility of accepting different movements. 

A few relaxed rolls down are a wonderful way to do this*. Gravity gives the body a help on the way down and acts as a natural weight to open up space between the vertebrae. Maintaining a heaviness on the way back allows the body to feel the movement of the joints stacking on top of each other. 

Stand with your feet about hip width apart looking straight ahead then TAKE YOUR TIME, rolling down from an upright to a folded hang. 

Stat by dropping your head towards your chest and then using the head as a guide, taking your body slowly downward and without tension. Your head is heavy, allow it to be so and let the rest of your spine bend gradually, following the path that crown of your head is taking. Imagine your spine to be a weeping willow tree, your arms to be the branches, bending naturally, hanging in the wind yet able to move gently. You may wish to bend your knees a little, to soften the feeling in the back of your legs, yet still feel the release in your spine. 

Wherever you get to is not important. It is about doing it in an easy, tension free movement.

To come back up, maintain the heaviness of your head and gradually feel your spine build from the bottom up, your head being the last bit to arrive, like a dot on the top on an 'i'. 

Repeat the several times as you like, enjoying the release of each downward movement and the increased height of each returning movement. 

I then find it nice to do some 'cat - camel' movements, starting on all fours*.

What I like about this movement, from a teaching perspective, is that it becomes quite obvious where someone tends to ask their spine to flex and bend from, and it is also quite easy for that person to feel it once they become aware of it. (often the middle back, around the bra strap area, wants to do most of the cat stretch (far right picture) and the lower back wants to do most of the camel stretch (middle picture). 

Start the movements from your tail bone.  Send it upwards and out and let your belly fall gently, with your chest starting to lift and lengthen, your collar bones widening and your head eventually lifting slightly. Focus on length, rather than height and minimise effort and tension from the muscles, instead  imagine the bones moving fluidly and the tissues responding. Change direction, again starting form your tailbone. Send it downwards, as if it is diving through the space between your legs, your lower back following with length and width. As your middle back lengthens it will rise and a consequence and finally your head will drop with length removing tension in the neck. Continue to move from camel through to cat, stopping eventually with a lengthened back somewhere between the two movements. neither 'too cat' nor 'too camel'. 

Your arms stay straight throughout this and aim to not drop down through your shoulder blades as this will just hunch and restrict at your neck. 

Imagine your spine as a string of pearls, each able to move separately, but having coordinated beauty together moving freely as a set.

Enjoy your spine, enjoy its freedom. 

Til tomorrow.... :-)

CT :-) X 

(* If you are currently struggling with back issues, and have been advised to restrict certain movements for a time being, then check with your practitioner before carrying out these particular movements. It may be that you need one to one guidance to help you understand any specifics you may need to be aware of) 

Your wonderfully designed spine wants to articulate: 50 day blog - day 38

Our spine is an amazing flexible yet strong piece of design. It is capable of flexion, extension, side bending rotation and various combinations of these movements.

Yet, there can be tendency for us to imagine our spine as been rigid, as if this rigidity is what keeps us upright and keeps our back 'safe'. This feeling of needing to keep our back 'safe' makes some kind of intuitive sense because our spinal vertebrae cradle our spinal cord which is part of our central nervous system (also includes our brain which is protected by our skull) and which effectively controls our overall ability to move. Our torso is also the area of our body with a relatively small proportion of bony structure, making it actually quite incredible that we hold ourselves upright with just this bony structure running upwards within the tissues.

It is no wonder that we feel very protective of our backs! 

However, it is exactly the flexibility that out spine has that gives it its fullest strength! 

In exactly the same way as a tall building is designed to torque and bend (have you ever stood at the top level of one of the tallest skyscrapers and felt just how much it moves?!), our spine is designed to be fluid and mobile and able to absorb a pretty decent amount of stress, compression, and jolts. 

Yes, there are activities that are dangerous to our spine. But these are generally high adrenaline sports which can involve landing from a high height, at high speed, or both.

But in every day life our spine can cope, if we allow it the freedom to do so. The 33 vertebrae in our spine are designed to work together kind of like a wave, dispersing the energy along the whole spine, ensuring that one area never takes the full brunt of stressful movements. Over-protecting our back, actually prevents it from having this full freedom, therefore its full strength and ultimately it is stopping us moving as we are designed to. 

In general, we tend to have just a few (maybe even just one or two) areas of our spine that prefer to move. And also they tend to prefer particular movements, not necessarily their full portfolio of movement. So for  instance, the middle of our back loves to rotate, but if you sit at a desk all day or have a tendency to roll your shoulders in and stoop, then this area of your back is most likely being denied that rotation (unless you are actively working on freeing that rotation). Similarly our lower back is able to flex and extend, allowing our pelvis to be free below it. However, these days most people have a preference towards one or other of these movements and (again unless actively working on free-er movement) so the lower back can get stuck in a pattern of limited movement, for the jobs that it is asked to do. 

By working on our spinal mobility we can allow the more mobile parts of our spine to have a rest, and literally give it additional support from the rest of the spine. We can begin to work our spine as a coordinated team and prevent specific areas taking the brunt of our movement and becoming the weak link in the chain (potentially leading to disc problems, facet problems - which can cause nerve issues, et al). 

Without a specific known trauma having caused them, back issues tends to have come from repeated patterns of movement (or non movement) which eventually manifest in the weakest part of the chain. 

If you do already have back issues, seeing a professional would allow you to understand where your current movement may be adding to the issues, or where you may need to increase movement in other areas of your spine in order to release the area of issue and the underlying restrictive pattern.

If you do not currently have any pain or limitations with your back then prevention is most definitely better than cure. Look back to some of my earlier posts (Flowing Bridges, Rolling Rolling Rolling, Bendy Is As Bendy Does) for movements that can help free up your spine. I shall be adding another couple tomorrow as well :-)

So, til tomorrow... :-) 

CT :-) x  

PS: That there on the right is what the furry cuffs in the studio can help do (since most folks ask!) 

  

 

Take a Minute: 50 day blog - day 37

Take a minute right now (well, after reading this.....) to stop and notice. Really notice. 

Look at something and take it ALL in:

Maybe you look out of the window and notice the sky, a tree, a flower, a bird.  

Maybe you look at your hand, your foot, your arm, your leg, your belly. 

Perhaps you look at a loved one.

Notice everything that you see. Wonder at anything you are noticing for the first time, even if it's always been there. Bask in the warmth of any familiarity. Enjoy any surprises you may see.

Look   

You may choose instead to close your eyes and feel or listen:

Feel your fingers in your hair, on your skin. Lavish in the texture that is you. Notice if things feel different from what you expect.  

Feel your breathing within your body, reminding you that you are alive. Discover where you breathe, how you breathe, never judging just noticing. 

Listen to a song like it's the first time you've heard it. What does it say to you? How does it affect you?    

Whatever you choose to do, make that minute count! For that minute, be fully in it, noticing, feeling, seeing - being. You will learn something in that one minute. That one minute will matter. You will take in more then than you possibly could for one minute on Facebook, Twitter et al.

It's just one minute. Make the minutes count. 

NOW GO DO! 

Til tomorrow.... :-)   

CT :-) X


Similar posts:
Today Counts
Think What You Will
Being Human
From Outside To Inside

Fascia rock n roll: 50 day blog - day 36

I can't believe I forgot one of fascia's big likes yesterday (What fascia likes, what fascia don't likes)!! 

Fascia likes to move! 

More specifically, fascia likes to slide and glide. Fascial layers are continually moving as we move (and we never stop moving, even when we are in very deep sleep we still move). The layers are constantly adjusting to the forces and pulls in direction being placed on the body, constantly aiming to create a place of overall balance and equilibrium within the body. In order to slide and glide well the layers need that juiciness that I have mentioned before (How Spongy Are You?), or else they become sticky and start to adhere to each other.  

Once they stick then the movement changes. Get ready for another fascia analogy! Imagine that you are pulling sliding two layers of cling film over each other with a light lubrication between the sheets. They will have some kind of connection and energy exchange (possibly in the form of static), but will move quite freely from each other. Now imagine that you have stuck a tiny bit of glue at one point between them. When the glue first goes on it is wet and slidey and then as it dries it becomes harder and more sticky until the two sheets are stuck firmly together at that point. They cannot now move so freely and pulling one will affect the overall movement of both. This is like an adhesion of fascia, or those dehydrated and stuck nooks and crannies I have mentioned before. 

Now, imagine that the glue you used has some special property and when you rolled it (respectfully with something smooth and soft!) the glue became less sticky and hard and reverted back to the consistency it was when you first squeezed it out of the tube. The two sheets start to move apart and eventually they can slide and glide away quite happily again.   

To get rid of the last little bit of stickiness you'd probably move the two sheets apart and make sure they could move quite easily again. You wouldn't leave them as they were for the glue to re-harden and stick them back together again, after all that rolling you'd done.

Guess what? Just like fascia! ;-)

The rolling rehydrates the sticky adhesions. The body like to move gently after fascia release, in order to allow the adhesions that you have softened and freed up to fully release. It also allows the body to create new pathways in the neural system from being able to move more freely. By this I mean that the body learns that it can now move  through more range or with greater ease and flow where previously it could not. In a sense it creates new memory and your body will remember it can move like this as opposed to believing that it is still restricted. 

As with rolling, be respectful to your fascia. Do not ask it to go on a 15 mile run or some kind of intense aerobic or strength training session after a rolling session and expect it to take it all in! Be curious with your movement, and FEEL where you can now move and how this balances over all within your body. Try moves you regularly do and feel the difference. Try some moves you don't usually do and see what happens. Just don't try too hard! Slow and smooth, just like using the rollers or balls. Go back to my programme of movements (Move With Intention) which cover all the general fascia lines. 

You can just move and fascia will release. You can just roll or release fascia manually. But for me, the most powerful and longest lasting combination is to put the two together.

So, rock and roll, or roll and rock, dude. They go together.. ;-) 

Til tomorrow.....

CT :-) X 

Related blogs:
Fascia Fascia Fascia
Here's Where We Start With Fascia
What Fascia Likes, What Fascia Don't Likes
How Spongy Are You?

What fascia likes, what fascia don't likes. 50 day blog - day 35

Rollers and balls can be used to release fascia and improve your 'irrigation' (as I talked about yesterday - Here's Where We Start With Fascia). But before you grab a hard ball or roller and start pummelling away at your fascia, let me help you understand how to respect your fascia by sharing a few of its likes and dislikes.

Fascia likes slow. It requires patience to work with your fascia. Less is most definitely more, and slow slow slow is the way to go! That means slowly in terms of the work that you are doing at the time, and slowly in terms of making it a long term project. You can get wonderful relief quickly from fascia release, but remember that the whole body is connected and adjustments in one place will have effects elsewhere, so you may become aware of others areas needing treated once you start the process. Trust me it will be worth it!

Fascia likes a smooth move. Once you make an initial connection with your fascia then keep hold of the connection and work smoothly in the direction you are taking it. So, if you are for instance using a roller then keep working smoothly in that one direction, not changing about and lifting the connection off and back on again. Make decisive moves each time you roll, confident, yet caring.

Fascia likes consistency. Keep a consistent pace and pressure if you can. If you find the pressure becomes painful then back off gradually, but keep the connection. Similarly, you may find that you naturally get a little faster as you roll, but make any changes in pace gradual.  

Fascia likes soft! I wince when I see people rolling their legs or feet with a hard blue roller or a golf / hockey ball, grimacing and gritting their teeth (possibly even priding themselves in their ability to bear it). Soft is the way to go! Soft rollers, soft tennis balls, soft squash balls. More powerful than you can imagine. If you make a slow smooth consistent connection with something soft then your fascia will respond!

Fascia doesn't like pain. Refer back to my wincing at folks rollering themselves to a pulp! Pain is fascia telling you that what you're doing is not what it needs! Our culture has a tendency to view that if we can't feel it then it can't be doing anything, or that we must work through pain. Not when it comes to fascia! Many believe (myself included) that fascia is a physical representation of our overall belief system. What better way to challenge your core beliefs by trying a pain free approach and being open to what changes can actually be made this way!

Fascia doesn't like surprises. Refer back to consistency and smoothness. Fascia likes to be approached considerately and given time and space to release and make changes. If you jump in quick, press hard suddenly, prod, poke, make sudden movements, change direction etc etc, your fascia is going to lose its 'thought process'. For your fascia its like being in meditation and then quickly jolted out of it. Its just a no no! 

Approach your fascia like ice cream. Good quality creamy ice cream has that firmness but softness to it when it comes out of the freezer. When you put the spoon or scoop in, you make that first connection and then you glide through the ice cream - with just enough pressure to determine the direction, but in some way the ice cream is already guiding you through it. Give your fascia the same respect you would give good quality (organic!) delicious ice cream! Savour it, let it melt, enjoy and don't overdo it! 

With this list of essential guidelines now at your finger tips then try rolling! 

The best rollers to use for releasing fascia, are soft white rollers, or even better are soft springy rollers (a little like swimming 'noodles' that are often used in aqua classes, or with children). With the right roller you can work throughout your body and roll away the larger areas of tissue. For example you can sit on a roller and roll down the back of your legs, or your calves, or the tissue on each side of your waist, or your arms, even your neck and back of your skull. 

Soft balls are better for 'nooks and crannies'. The best soft balls are cheap tennis balls (and I do mean the cheap ones, as these ones are softer and more pliable) or squash balls. Smooth is better than spiky as it keeps a consistent pressure almost moving the fascia like a wave. You can use these on feet, hands, shoulder blades. 

One of the best places to go to learn what and how to do this, is the monthly fascia workshops held by Improve With Pilates in Stirling. Kirsty hold these 2 hour workshops monthly and guides you through your whole body. It's a total treat for the body - even better than ice cream!   

Til tomorrow..... :-) 

CT :-) x

Related blogs:

Fascia Fascia Fascia

Here's Where We Start With Fascia

How Spongy Are You?

Fascia Rock N Roll

How spongy are you? 50 day blog - day 34

I used to struggle to get my head around the fact that the human body is almost 2/3rd water. I just couldn't picture it. I could imagine the fluidity of our blood and plasma but not where the rest of the water was or could be held.

But if we consider how a sponge works and relate this to the body then it becomes easier to imagine how water works in our tissues. Healthy fascia has a lovely 'juicy' quality to it and the sponge analogy can help explain this. 

Imagine first a well hydrated but slightly dirty sponge. Wring it out and the excess liquid runs out, the dirt with it. The sponge then rebounds back into shape. You can move it a lot, squeeze it, twist it, knead it and it will rebound with spring and resilience. This is like healthy fascia. It is juicy and well hydrated and can be moved in many directions with a springiness to it. It bounces back to into shape relatively easy. Just as the wringing out cleans the sponges, so too does moving clean out the toxins held within the fascia (we sweat or pee the liquid out). 

Now imagine a dried out dirty sponge. It is brittle and more vulnerable to areas potentially breaking or ripping off. It takes longer to get the sponge soaked and more and more wringing to get the dirt out of it. This is like unhealthy fascia. It is hard and immobile and retains toxins. 

So what would you do with the second sponge. Well, you'd potentially throw it away, but I'm guessing that's not what you want to do with your body! Most likely you'd soak it in clean water and then keep wringing it out and rinsing it until it became clean again. The dried out sponge has become the way it was because it wasn't getting used and moved or getting any water through out. 

Can you see, on a global scale in your body, how clean water and movement help to keep you healthy?

Now, in all of us there will be localised areas of this harder, dehydrated fascia. It is an inevitable part of life. Until we move or hydrate it, it will stay that way. BUT, they can be moved! Doing so and hydrating these areas can do wonders for your overall health and vitality. I forget the exact quote and who said it, but someone once said that we don't get old, we just get dried out (I will find the quote and quotee). Wouldn't it be nice to 'dry out' at a much slower pace and delay the 'ageing' process??  Although drinking a good amount of water every day will help you overall, it won't get into these stuck areas without the water channels being opened up. It's a bit like irrigation.

Those areas in your body where you feel tight, stiff and generally a bit inflexible are where you are most likely to have areas of fascia like the 'neglected sponge'. The very areas that you may feel you aren't able to move, are EXACTLY the areas that you HAVE to get moving. But this needs to be done carefully, with patience and persistence. Disciplines such as yoga and pilates are good for getting moving these areas. A good class or one to one teacher will literally help you get into the nooks and crannies and get them moving better. 

Such movement is one way of wringing the sponges out, so to speak. Fascia release work is another. Going to a myofascia release practitioner is a good way to get specific areas worked on for you and to benefit from the eye and skill of a specialised practitioner. But you can do some general work yourself, with rollers and balls. 

Rollers, balls and fascia release deserve to be the subject of a whole blog post, so let me pick up from there there tomorrow. 

So, til tomorrow then.... :-)

CT :-) x

Related blogs:
Fascia Fascia Fascia
Here's Where We Start With Fascia
What Fascia Likes, What Fascia Don't Likes
Fascia Rock N Roll

Definitely a day to go with the flow! 50 day blog - day 33

Some days you just have to throw your hands up in the air and give in to whatever the world is throwing at you. The more you try to take back control, the more likely it is that there will be something else just waiting to disrupt you and show you that control is futile! 

I started today the ultimate picture of zen, with a whole day ahead of me in the house to write and catch up on everything that I needed

to. I'd planned a lovely run along the prom towards the end of the afternoon as a reward for all my work efforts of the day. And then a nice evening cooking a lovely dinner for me and my husband which I dreamed of placing down in front of him once he came home in the evening. 

After answering some emails and texts this morning, and a wee plan of a couple of blog posts, I took myself off to the supermarket to get the week's shopping. I had list in hand and everything. Not my usual style but I'm doing a detox and I needed to be organised. Felt very in control and happy with my wee self.  

Supermarket shop went well, with me remembering everything (thank you, list!) and I tootled home to make a dream salad for lunch. As I chopped and stirred away I was dreaming of myself as a potential Masterchef candidate, knowing all the best flavours and getting the proportions down to a tee! 

I sat down with the salad and was getting ready to get back up to the study to write and plan and get back to everything on my other list, the 'to do list'. I almost wet myself when I saw someone pottering away in the back garden, then was relieved to see that it was my uncle who had mentioned that he'd come round one day and measure the garden when we were out, for some designs. It was absolutely lovely to see him and my auntie so I spent an hour chatting and catching up. 

When I did get back upstairs writers block set in and for love nor money I couldn't string two words together! After an hour and a half I decided that I'd better got for that run so that I could create some space in my brain and then the words would flow. Serenity was just a wee run away I reckoned. Off I tootle to Portobello Prom for a nice wee view of the sea as I ran. It was indeed lovely, although my legs had no idea what was happening and didn't seem to know left from right. Detox and running are apparently a hilarious combination. Although my energy was fine, my coordination was not!  

Back at the car I caught up on the emails I'd received in the afternoon. Time was getting on but I reckoned I could get back, do a wee half hour of writing and then make the amazing curry that I had planned, then finish my blog after dinner. That would have been if I hadn't got caught in a traffic jam on the way back. Although the traffic jam did give me time to remember that I actually didn't have any carrots to make the vegetable stock that I needed. Into supermarket (again), carrots purchased,  and then I'm back on the way home. 

I decided that I'd best make the vegetable stock first, then get the dinner on and while it was simmering the required 40 minutes then I could write.  

Ok, so here's where it all went pear shaped...! 

Remind me never again to decide to make lentil soup at the same time as a chick pea and butternut squash curry just because I 'may aswell use the rest of the stock'.  Remind me next time that butternut squash and chick pean curry actually takes almost and hour and a half by the time I chop, roast, simmer, blah blah blah... Remind me how frustrated I get when I do too many things at once and the plates stop spinning perfectly (I was also doing a washing and answering emails). Remind me how this usually leads to accidents...... Remind me next time I go to the shops that I will also forget tinned tomatoes (read that to me that I had to pop out to the shops AGAIN, mid dinner making).....

Remember that lovely picture I had this morning of me presenting my husband with some master cuisine dish of full health as he walk though the door, me also dressed immaculately, beaming widely and telling him of my amazingly productive day....? Yeah, well, no that never quite materialised!! 

What he did come home to was me still in sweaty running kit, the kitchen floor covered in the insides of butternut squash (which I'd savagely destroyed in temper because it's no easy smooth vegetable to chop and peel apparently!), the sink filled to the brim (and more) with pretty much every dish in our cupboards, and washing lying about not quite put away. But the next scene could not have been written by a comedy sketch writer. As I announced to him that things were a bit messy but I'd made a lentil soup too that he could have for lunches this week.... As I announced this to him, while popping it in the liquidiser to smooth out, there was an almighty raining down all over the kitchen of lentil soup...... Yup, I'd forgotten to put the lid on the processor! 

What can you do...? You have to laugh in situations like these! It was so utterly ridiculous and the kitchen walls were quite literally painted with lentil soup (albeit yeast, dairy and sugar free!!). 

But do you know, the mess got cleaned up, the curry was lovely, there IS still some lentil soup left for lunches, and we both had a laugh. 

And amazingly against all the odds I have got through all of my work to do list, AND written my blog! I guess this is wheat you were meant to read rather than my carefully planned and thoughtful piece. That'll teach me!!! 

Til tomorrow..... 

CT :-) x

Who Wants Shiny Smooth Hair....? 50 Day Blog - day 32

Most of us have Olive oil and Cyder Vinegar in the cupboard, right? 
If you don't, then go get and you have the best hair conditioner you can imagine! Cheap as chips and better for the environment...!  

I love to do this on a day when I'm not needing to be showered and out the door within half an hour.

• Lather your unwashed hair with olive oil and leave for as long as possible. 

I have long hair and it takes about 3 little handfuls to cover all my hair (about 3 tablespoonfuls). I just pour some into the palm of my hand and then rub from the roots through to the ends. I tend to do this before making breakfast, so that I can sit with it on my hair while I eat and enjoy a cuppa. If I can keep it on any longer than that then even better. 

• Wash you hair as normal with shampoo and conditioner. Then pour Cyder Vinegar over as rinse before then rinsing that out with water. 

I tend to just pour the vinegar into the palm of my hand again, but pretty much most times I do that I decide that next time I should probably use a wee cup! Again I need about 3 handfuls / tablespoonfuls. 
I also have a quick cold water rinse at the end, but that's up to you! 

Have a day without any products in your hair, and go straightener free that day, if these are your usual routines. Let your hair breathe and be natural. You'll really notice the shine and smoothness that way, and so will others. 

Til tomorrow....

CT :-) x 

So here's where we start with Fascia! 50 Day Blog - Day 31

It is no exaggeration to say that fascia is EVERYWHERE in our body. But what is it?! 

Do you know when you peel the skin off a chicken breast and you see a filmy kind of skin? This is the chicken's fascia. Healthy fascia is fluid and film like and works as layers throughout and within the body.  

It is a connective tissue that wraps around our muscles, our organs and our bones. It connects muscles to bones ( tendons are fascia), bones to bones (ligaments are fascia) and cushions our vertebrae (discs are fascia too!). It is as much just under the skin as it is deep in our very core. 

The fascia is one of three whole systems in the body (the other two being the neural system (nerves) and our fluid system (veins and arteries)). By this I mean that if we took everything in your body away except the fascia, but left that standing as if in life then we would still see YOU. We would see your shape, your posture, your unique facial expressions, all your individual variances. 

What is so incredulous about this is that even though it is so endless throughout our body, until relatively recently, traditional anatomical training considered fascia to be of little importance! During dissections, the fascia was taken off and thrown away. Infact the cleaner the dissection (i.e. the more fascia thrown away), the more revered the dissectionist! Muscle function was studied to discover where muscles moved bones and where groups of muscles worked together as an organisation for specific actions. But the role of fascia in these actions was never considered. 

In actual fact as Ida Rolf (probably the original fascia-nista!) stated "it's all connected through the fascia". It is fascia that moulds us in to the shapes that we make. So for example if we sit cross legged then we will start to mould the positioning of our muscles. The quads, hamstrings and adductors in the thigh in theory should move freely and work efficiently in a group when we then, say, walk. But if, say, we have spent a majority of our time repeatedly sitting cross legged then the muscles won't have that freedom because the fascia has effectively been sticking together between and around the muscles in order to mould them into that often repeated crossed leg position (when you then stand your hip most likely on that side is slightly hinged and then thigh slightly turned in). 

To help make that picture clearer, imagine the fascia layers as being like layers of cling film, bound around each muscle and then bound around all the muscles. You know how layers of cling film become difficult to separate from one another once you have bound it tightly? That's like fascia! We bind our fascia into our most common shapes. 

In order for the muscles to function as they're theoretically meant to, the layers of fascia need to slide and glide with movement. But the repeated crossed leg positioning gives the fascia a patterning memory and it becomes a comfort default position. The layers tend to stick more together in this position and so the muscles get stuck, because of the fascia, into this positioning and then it is much harder for them to organise as they are meant to, when asked to move. 

This is also why we need to be careful with repetitive actions - any repetitive actions, but especially unbalanced and poorly aligned actions! So sitting with the same leg crossed over the other, sitting all the time (full stop!), standing with weight over to one side and a hip hinged, crumpling at the waist, leaning on once elbow at a desk, cycling with poor positioning, running with poor technique.... The list is quite literally endless. We mould into these shapes that we make. 

The fact is, we are ALL going to have areas of our body where in some way our fascia is restricting and affecting our mobility and ease of movement. We cannot get through life without this happening. It IS life. BUT.... on the flip side, we CAN work on our fascia to MINIMISE restrictions. 

Part of that is by balancing out our poorer habits with better ones, by not sitting for too long in the same position, by creating a range of movements in our daily life - a lot of the things that I have already discussed in previous blogs. 

We can also release fascia through movement and 'massage'* - look back to the movements that I suggested last week (Move with Intention) which provide a generalised programme for releasing commonly needed areas. With regards to the 'massage', well, that is for another day (Although you can look back to Best Foot Forward for some simple fascia release work you can do yourself on your feet)

* I use the word 'massage' loosely as fascia requires a specific kind of technique.  

Til tomorrow.... :-)

CT :-) x

Related blogs:
Fascia Fascia Fascia
What Fascia Likes, What Fascia Don't Likes
How Spongy Are You?
Fascia Rock N Roll

Fascia fascia fascia! 50 day blog - day 30

As most if not all of you already know, I love fascia. It's the 'thing of the moment' in many ways and we are seeing it more and more being discussed in the fitness world and articles coming out telling us what to do which your fascia, how to look after it and so on. 

I welcome this rise in awareness on the one hand, and there are some great articles written in layman's language which help to give a picture to fascia and highlight its importance in our health. On the other hand I have a sneaky suspicion that 'fascia' will become a fad word in some fields (much as 'core' was and 'functional' currently is), and be used where not necessarily relevant or understood, or just to sell the latest product or fitness service. 

I make no claims to be an expert in fascia - for the simple reason that this is a relatively new science (although fascia release in some sense has been around since the beginning of the last century, via Ida Rolf and her Rolfing work). 

But what I can tell you is that I have a passion for understanding fascia beyond anything that I have ever studied previously. I discovered fascia, quite by accident, about 5 years ago, when I was doing my pilates training. After a long day of learning in the studio, I was lying in my hotel room, pressing a few places on my body that felt a bit tight. Before I knew it I was following some kind of tissue trail with my fingers that was leading me around my legs and hips and feet and it felt great. Then everything felt loose and mobile and I wondered what the heck I had done. I stood up and my alignment was completely different! The changes were noticed the next day and when I explained what I'd done, it was explained to me that I had unknowingly fascia released myself! And so the fascia passionista was born!  

For me it was the missing link which brought everything together. In my mind fascia links mind and body, art and science, chemistry, biology and physics, action and stillness, emotions and logic, past and present. You get the picture! Its big news for me! But the other things that made sense to me with fascia was its language. In some sense I can't explain this, as it just made sense to me intuitively. But I could see and feel what fascia was saying to me. I instinctively knew in my body where my fascia needed released or nurtured, and I could understand fascia messages in my clients. 

I have lapped up everything that I can learn about fascia since. And I am so lucky to be studying a course at the moment which is being led by one of the world's leading Fascia-nistas! (I am trying not to be a groupie!)

So while I absolutely claim no expertise and am well aware that there is SO much more to be learnt about this wonderful system, I'd really like to share some of my fasci(a)nations with fascia with you so that hopefully you can appreciate just how wonderful your system is and how wonderful the body is. I guess my intention is to every so often plonk fascia posts into this blog (which will most definitely continue after the big 50th day!)... 

So for today I shall sign off, but from tomorrow I welcome to my world of fascia!!! (Don't worry there will be other posts of my usual randomness too!!)

So, til tomorrow...

CT :-) x


Related blogs:
Here's Where We Start With Fascia
What Fascia Likes, What Fascia Don't Likes
How Spongy Are You?
Fascia Rock N Roll

Yes, that is my toenails! 50 Day blog - day 29

Ok, its time to come clean. These are my toenails:

I know, they're disgusting aren't they? 

So those toenails have been my shameful secret for the last 4 years. I tell a lie actually, I had similar such toenails about 10 years ago. At that time I took hard anti-fungal drugs. Before being prescribed these you are required to take a liver test to ensure that your liver is of sufficient quality and function to be able to cope with the toxicity of the drugs that you are about to take daily for up to a year! Looking back, being the person that I am now, I can't actually believe that I didn't bat an eyelid then and was just glad to hear that my liver functioned well enough for me to be prescribed the drugs. I didn't care otherwise. So I took the drugs. My toenails cleared up. and guess, what, they came back again - with a vengeance (as you can see!)!

Clearly I had not learned the lesson that my toenails were trying to tell me - so here they are, a daily shameful reminder that in some way I am not walking the talk of health! 

They taunt me every time I go to yoga, and want to show off my lovely functioning feet. They giggle under my socks when I want to pad about barefoot in the studio. The scream 'Don't even think about it!' when I look at lovely sandals with space to air my tootsies.

I know fine that they are saying to me.... You need to know how powerful nutrition is in healing the body, is what they are saying. 

I firmly believe that good movement, nutrition and a healthy mind can heal a vast majority of ailments and illnesses and that if we used these more effectively and specifically then drugs would not need to be prescribed so prolifically. I know first hand the powerful healing effects of working on movement and the mind, but I have never personally used nutrition as the medicine that I know it can be. These toenails are offering me the opportunity to do this now, and are telling me to bring everything together and FULLY walk the talk (it's no coincidence that they're on the end of my feet, is it!) 

So, that is why today I show you my toenails, and I intend to one day in the future show you my lovely healthy shiny toenails, that will be reaped as a result of the nutrition changes that I am about to take. I intend to starve the body of the abundance of yeast that it is being overfed and instead feed it the most healthful and healing foods possibly. Rather than focus on everything I CAN'T have (which is basically anything containing sugars, yeast or lactose), here's everything that I WILL be eating: 

All vegetables

All meats and fishes

All whole grains, except oats

All pulses, except soya

All oils, except sunflower oil

All nuts, except peanuts

And coconut oil in everything! 

I'm going to be eating salads for breakfast (yup, you read that right - the thought of vegetable smoothies makes me puke!), soups and grain dishes for lunch and fish or pulses with vegetables for dinner. It actually is all my dream foods, but somewhere over the years I got pulled away from them and didn't prioritise these as what suits me. 

And I think that is also what my toes are telling me - that I just have to eat the diet that I really really enjoy and then they'll reward me with beautiful toenails. 

So, here's to a future picture of my toenails which doesn't need an x-rating! 

Til tomorrow....

CT :-) x