Fascial tissue may the ability to contract and adjust stiffness, potentially to the benefit of athletes under prolonged periods of mechanical stress. Endurance training may include an element of fascial tissue training which would work in conjunction with muscular endurance to further develop our bio-mechanical endurance.
What is fascia?
“Dense irregular connective tissue sheets in the human body – such as aponeuroses, joint capsules, or muscular envelopes like the endo-, peri- and epimysium – are usually referred to as fascia. Ligaments and tendons may be regarded anatomically as local thickenings of fascial sheets, which are adapting to increased local tension with a denser and more parallel fiber arrangement.”
Why am I excited?
“it is also assumed that fascia is solely a passive contributor to biomechanical behavior. Contrary to this common conception, the authors propose the hypothesis, that human fascia may be able to spontaneously adjust its stiffness in a time period ranging from minutes to hours and thereby contribute more actively to musculoskeletal dynamics.”
“Interestingly, in the condition “frozen shoulder” the fascial contracture sometimes improves spontaneously within a few days [24] and [25]. This seems to indicate a fairly rapid release of cellular contractions, rather than long term morphological changes in the collagen architecture.”
“Suspending thin strips of this fascia in a superfusion system, they were able to induce clear and reversible tissue contractions in response to mepyramine, calcium chloride, as well as adenosine. (…) The rapid onset, the reversibility, the repeatability and the dose dependency of the contractile responses in all these tissues suggest that cellular receptors are responsible for the observed effects.”
For endurance athletes:
“When exposed to several hours or even days of high stress situations, an innate capacity to increase fascial stiffness may be invaluable.”
“Given the genetic capacity of fibroblasts to become contractile, it seems feasible that our bodies now may contain the ability to activate this advantage when challenged by periods of high mechanical and/or emotional stress.”
For body builders, power lifters, and mixed martial artists:
“A temporary increase in fascial stiffness would consequently improve fascial proprioception and increase muscular activation. An animal or person with an enhanced fascial stiffness would therefore have the advantage of a generally more precise and more rapid muscular reflex coordination in response to fascial proprioception, as well as the increased sturdiness.”
Implications
“If we hypothetically apply the same force ratio to whole fascial sheets in the human body, it seems clear that such fascial contractions could have substantial biomechanical influences.”
“Manual deep tissue therapies, such as Rolfing or myofascial release, which claim to influence fascial tone [38], may be able to benefit from more specific understanding (and new questions) from this new perspective. It is also possible, that acupuncture, which has been recently shown to be intimately linked with fascial anatomy [39] and [40], may be better understood and its effectiveness improved.”
“How is fascial contractility related to microinjuries, to hypoxia, to stress or infection related cytokines? How does it respond to different hormonal or pharmacological agents? Why does the fascial contraction in frozen shoulder often heal spontaneously, while this is rarely the case with the palmar fascia in Dupuytren contracture? How do different types of static and cyclic mechanical stimulation influence fascial contractility?”
Active fascial contractility: Fascia may be able to contract in a smooth muscle-like manner and thereby influence musculoskeletal dynamics
http://www.fasciaresearch.de/wcb2006.pdf
Leave a Reply