Fascial Stretch Therapy™

What is fascia?
Fascia is a layer of fibrous tissue, it is a structure of connective tissue that surrounds muscles, groups of muscles, blood vessels, and nerves, binding some structures together, while permitting others to slide smoothly over each other. Various kinds of fascia consist of distinct layers, depending on their functions and their anatomical location: a superficial fascia, a deep fascia, and a subserous (or visceral) fascia and extends uninterrupted from the head to the tip of the toes. Like ligaments, aponeuroses, and tendons, fascia are dense regular connective tissues, containing closely packed bundles of collagen fibers oriented in a wavy pattern parallel to the direction of pull. Fascia are consequently flexible structures able to resist great unidirectional tension forces until the wavy pattern of fibers has been straightened out by the pulling force.  Fascia are similar to ligaments and tendons as they are all made of collagen except that ligaments join one bone to another bone, tendons join muscle to bone and fascia connect muscles to other muscles.

Flexibility is a very important contribution to the overall health and function of our bodies. Most people are achieving strength and cardio thru their day to day work and exercise, walking, gardening and playing sports to name a few. It is the stretching that seems to take a back seat to our exercise routines.

The body will tighten when the tissues (fascia) are under stress from injuries, surgery or postural imbalances. As we age the lack of flexibility can cause muscle and joint stiffness and compression of the joint capsule. The most important benefit of stretching is it feels great to do; your body will be more relaxed! It doesn’t matter if you’re an office worker looking for relief from sitting over a computer all day or a martial artist wanting to do the side splits or are you a weekend athlete and you need more rotation for your golf or tennis swing!! There are many benefits of stretching you will experience less muscle tension and soreness, better physical fitness and performance also risk of injury will be lowered. It is important to make stretching a part of your daily life. When stretching is done properly you shouldn’t feel any serious pain the next day. 

One way to start is learning in a class setting. You benefit by having a teacher making sure you don’t overstretch and that your body is in the best position for the stretch. It is also important to understand how to stretch and ways to make the stretch more efficient, an example is a method called contract & relax which involves contracting a muscle against resistance increasing the muscles ability to stretch! It can be your start to a home program that can be tweaked at the next class to be sure of proper posture and duration. There are many opinions about the value of stretching and how…my suggestion is to come and experience it and decide for yourself!! 
Another of course is to come and experience a private session increasing your flexibilty up to 30% in three visits.