Fascia: A route to treating un-explained pain

Last month I fed into an article by journalist Angela Kennedy for Top Sante magazine, on the part of our anatomy called ‘fascia’. And how Rolfing can address un-explained pain by working in the fascia of our bodies. Here’s our discussion below, we cover what fascia is, what Rolfing is, how fascia can ‘cause’ discomfort through injury, habits, repetitive tasks and our history, how we can address that pain and discomfort through Rolfing. And some tips on avoiding or reducing fascia based pain.

Angela: What is Rolfing & what is the purpose of Rolfing?

Hayley: Rolfing is a combination of roofing and golfing..... 😉 ha ha, I often say that to nudge us away from a 'here's the science' moment. I borrow it from my Rolfing teacher, Giovanni Felicioni, who is very good at bringing a warm humanness to our work, it's an essential part. 

Explaining Rolfing can be an intricate web, as can Rolfing itself. On a human level it is being with the warming presence of someone who has got to know the anatomy of the body and it's incredible support system, the connective tissue web called ‘fascia’. And who has been on a journey, through a deep training and the experience of working with clients, of coming into a better relationship with their body and this system called fascia. 

On a practical level, it is in this system called the ‘fascia’ that we work in as Rolfers, with our hands and through movement direction. The purpose of the work with our clients is to arrange this support system in a more easeful relationship with gravity. We do this by working with our hands to change the structure of this system, which often has imbalances, parts that are bunched up, or not functioning so well. All of us are submitting to gravity or fighting it in some way, which can cause pain, injury or tiredness and or nervous system trouble. The relationship between our supporting structure and gravity could be more easeful for all of us. 

So this is our work, to re-arrange the posture, through this support system called the fascia, to bring more ease, less pain, a better relationship with how we move, stand, sit and relate to the world.  

Angela: What is your understanding of the fascia & why might it be the cause of unexplained stiffness or pain?

Hayley: I wouldn't say that the fascia might be 'the cause' of stiffness or pain. As a material, it's pretty innocent stuff, like we are. But when we have an injury that hasn't recovered, or when we have inherited a way to hold ourselves in our posture that causes us pain or discomfort, or when what we do in our lives means we repeatedly put some kind of strain on our posture, by sitting at a desk daily for example, or playing tennis a lot, or chopping carrots every day, then it's the fascia that sort of holds us in that. It changes to allow our body to do what we are asking it to do, or because of an impact or habit. Believe it or not, even when the impact/injury is emotional or psychological, the fascia changes. And if we don’t recover or we keep doing a task or movement over and over we can get into an arrangement that causes us pain. Also, when we are learning from those around us how to stand up and how to walk and move, we move into the ways our families and care givers are using, or in response to this, and learn their useful, and also un-useful ways to stand up and move around.

Working in the fascia system we can move a body out of an impact an injury has had, or the impact our daily lives have had, or the impact of our history.. 

And as you are perhaps beginning to imagine, working in the fascia can also work on what we might experience as psychological injuries or patterns, because these are held in the fascia too.  

Angela: How does Rolfing target the fascia to relieve pain? How exactly does it work?

Hayley: Let's look at an example, to help us paint a picture of the fascia aspect of pain, compared to other aspects. If we take lower back pain, one of the most common experiences of long-term chronic pain. Some really great research tells us now that about 15-20 percent of lower back pain is caused by something amiss in the spine, and we can pretty easily clinically test for this through scanning. For 80-85 percent of cases, a spine or disc miss-placement is not the cause and nothing shows up when we scan the back. We don't yet have a scan that can pick up other causes of lower back pain. But we do have some indications, often when pain is muscular it will be easier to pinpoint the pain to a particular spot (and it will also have a fascia aspect). Soon I hope we will have scanning that picks up pain causing adhesions in the fascia when someone reports lower back pain. Right now we don't have that. What we do have are indications for this - a fascia oriented back pain spreads more, it's less pin-pointed, and can also spread to the legs too. And if there is an emotional aspect, research tells us also that there may be a fascia aspect. Some of us get very emotional about everything of course, but on the whole. 

If there is a fascia aspect, it is rarely useful to work only locally to the pain. The fascia is a web that is connected through the whole body, there are layers under our skin, connecting to layers that go around and through the muscles, organs, vessels and tendons. And it connects our habits and our injuries all together very often. So we first make an assessment of how a client stands and walks, and where there may be adhesions, and then we work with our hands, through the layers in various parts of the body, and slowly, slowly unravel the layers of fascia that are caught up. 

Angela: Are there any simple exercises or tips that might help avoid/reduce stiffness forming in the fascia which you could give for readers to try at home, please?

This is a very new and growing science, we can certainly effect what we call 'elasticity' of the fascia. And this makes us feel more bouncy, more resilient, toe running is great for this -that's jogging when we don't put our heels down. There is a beautiful and strong fascia layer that runs from under the hinge of the big toes, deep through the legs and deep into the core of our body, and the bouncing action of toe running is super good for this layer and our bounciness or ‘resilience’.

Also fascia is a sensory organ, so exercises where the attention is inside the body are good, to feel the body on a delicate level while we are moving in space. 

And then there is the squeezing of fascia that we can do with foam rolling, but it's useful to know where and how to work to apply pressure. And sometime we need some help, from someone who can receive us and help to identify where to work, and bring a use of specialised touch with their hands rather than a roller. There’s growing evidence that foam rolling on our own body might not be the most useful way to effect fascia based stiffness and pain.

I hope that helps :)