The Holy Grail of Health: Pain Free Posture and Power of Fascia
by Mitchell Thompson
(6 Minute Read)
The vast majority of physiotherapists, personal trainers, and exercise experts ignore one of the most important aspects of training with regards to the human anatomy: taking into account the fascial system. In order to truly fix chronic pain, we must become self aware of this important system and intentionally work towards optimizing it. This is primarily done in educating the individual on what fascia even is and implementing basic health practices - namely the power of pain free posture.
There are two well known structures in the body called the skeletal system (bones) and the muscular system (muscles). Though they are their ‘own systems,’ it can be confusing to look at the body and think of it as a compartmentalization of independent systems. Truly the body is a singular macro system with micro structures within it. This is where we can differentiate certain ‘micro’ structures, like the skeletal and muscular systems. With this being said, the vast majority of the fitness industry dismisses one of the most crucial systems in our entire anatomy - the fascial system. Without making this a dissertation as to why the fitness industry dismisses fascia, let’s dive into what fascia even is and why it is so important.
Since the dawn of kinesiology and the study of human anatomy, researchers have completely ignored what fascia is and what it does. Even in the wake of technological innovation, doctors continued to ignore fascia because it doesn’t show up in MRI, X-rays, or CT Scans. As a result, many modern 20th century scientists completely overlook fascia and its implications. When using MRI, X-rays, or CT Scans, the majority of doctors are diagnosing malformations in only bone or muscular structures and are doing so based on these type of scans. And since these type of scans may not indicate the fascial catalyst, the majority of doctors default to non-fascia based prognostications for the problem.
What exactly is fascia? For those familiar, fascia is a connective net of collagenated (stiff protein-based) soft-tissue webbing that encapsulates the entire human body. Fascia is made up primarily of collagen and a little bit of elastin, which are both structural proteins. Think of it like this; our organs are shielded by bones - which are connected via ligaments; our bones are wrapped in muscle - which are connected via tendons; and our muscles are wrapped in fascia. While ligaments connect bone-to-bone and tendons connect muscles-to-bone, fascia is interwoven within the layers of muscles and extends its connectivity to surrounding soft tissues and even the periosteum of bones (periosteum being the outermost layer of bones). You can think of tendons, ligaments, and fascia as similar tensile soft tissues just located in different parts of the body and possessing unique functions. The primary differences between the three stem from their connectivity function and how they’re connected (bone-to-bone, muscle-to-bone, interwoven). The similarities between the three is revealed in their chemical make-up: all three relatively being made up of 70% water and 30% dry mass, which is made up of 60-80% collagen and only 2% elastin.
Model representing the hyper-focused force of gravity on the inflexed points of the body’s asymmetry.
The difference between elastin and collagen stems from their elastic stiffness. In general, the more superficial the layer of soft tissue, the more elastic/stretchy it is (skin as the best example). Meanwhile, the deeper the layer of soft tissue, the more collagenated/stiff the tissue becomes (deep fascia layers).
Collagen is 100x stiffer then elastin, giving it the ability to store the same amount of energy as elastin with only 1/100 the amount of required stretching. Think of the difference between rubber and steel: a civil engineer would not build a bridge and suspend it with rubber wires. Instead, the engineer would use steel because steel is unintuitively stiffer and more elastic than rubber. Steel will maintain its structural integrity (a greater resistance to change/deformation) better than rubber - denoting steel as being more structural efficient (especially from a tensile standpoint) than rubber.
Elastin, however, being 100x less stiff than collagen, is 1,000x more elastic (stretchier) than collagen. Both of these proteins are crucial for maintaining a harmonious balance in the body. Not only are the proteins themselves crucial, but so is the necessity for their ultimate understanding.
The biomechanical/functional differences between high-tensile soft tissues (meaning the difference between tendons, ligaments, fascia) is not obvious at first glance. Most of our understanding of how the human anatomy works stems from the dissections of dead corpses. Since the biomechanical function of certain tensile tissues cannot be measured in dead cadavers, the majority of doctors and exercise scientists group them all together and ignore the unique properties of each system (namely fascia). As a result, the scientific understanding, let alone the experimental implementation, of fascia-based exercise science is only about 10 years old.
“Tendons are [completely] devoid of elasticity.” - Henry Gray “Anatomy of the Human Body” 1918, exemplifying the ignorance of early anatomists.
The foundations of exercise science was found upon implicit bias (ignorance) against tensile connective tissues (namely fascia) because of their “at first glance” misunderstanding and nonintuitive nature. Yet, throughout all of human history, the collagenous parts of animals have always been the favorable source of material for the tools and technologies of our ancient ancestors. Whether it be the furs and skins for multipurpose use, bones themselves, or tendons for cordage, our ancient ancestors understood the elastic properties and desired stiffness of certain anatomical parts of animals. Yet, 100 years ago, “anatomy specialists” were oblivious to this crucial understanding.
If you can begin to think of your body as an entire unit of connective systems, you can begin to take a more deliberate approach to fixing chronic pain. Fixing chronic pain starts first and foremost with fixing your posture. And fixing your posture can only be achieve by understanding fascia in some fundamental sense - especially if you desire to become self sustained in the progressing of your perfect posture.
Fixing your poor posture will begin to fix your base biomechanical imbalances - namely with how you walk and generally move throughout the day. Once you can stand better, you can walk better. Once you can walk better, you can begin to move better overall. And moving better is the name of the game - as most chronic pain in the 21st century can be mitigated by simply fixing our posture and moving more with better biomechanics. And the only way we can fix our posture is to understand why it is bad in the first place, what poor posture implicates long term, and how one can actually go about fixing their poor posture. By understanding fascia, you can begin to view fascia like the steel structure (chicken-wiring-like webbing) of our body, and how any/all imbalances can be improved by fixing our fascia.
Every part of the body is exposed to a pull by certain muscles due to the macro fascial connective chain. This is why pain in your lower back can be caused by tight muscles in your feet - following up the posterior chain as your feet connect to you achilles, and your achilles to your calf, and your calf to your hamstring, and your hamstring to your glutes, and your glutes to your lower back. Tightness and tension from one part of your body can unintuitively effect another opposing part of your body.
Fascia contains a lubricating carbohydrate that allows it to stretch when moving called hyaluronan. Inflammation and imbalanced/asymmetrical trauma can dry up the hyaluronan and tighten/damage fascia (creating adhesions). Tightened and damaged fascia, or fascial adhesions, will restrict overall movement of muscles and tissues which leads to chronic pain and potential lasting health conditions.
A myofascial adhesion is the compensatory build-up of scar tissue that the body produces in response to the inflexed points of any body’s asymmetry. By inflexed point of asymmetry I simply mean the point where gravity will hyperfocus its vertical force (reference model below). This means if you have an anterior pelvic tilt (meaning your pelvis is shifted forward and your butt sticks out), then you have a primary inflexed point of asymmetry in your quadratus lumborum. Meanwhile, if you fix your anterior pelvic tilt through posterior muscular irradiation (meaning if you start intentionally recruiting posterior muscles like the glutes) then you can begin to realign the inflection point of gravity’s force from the isolated region and reintegrate the distribution of gravity’s effective force fluidly throughout the entire body (as an entire connective chain). The model below exemplifies the inflexed points of asymmetry within a poor posture versus the gravitationally unaffected fluidity of a proper posture and its connective chain.
Our ancient ancestors naturally made friends with gravity, and their daily habits conditioned them to work in sync with such. Our biomechanics must adhere to the natural physics of the universe. This means that our biomechanics must work with the laws of physics and not against it. Though this is easier said than done, we can at least become privy to the potential catalysts of chronic pain - namely from the poor modern habits of sitting and not walking enough. Once we are aware of the problem’s cause, we can then begin to curatively treat the problem head on. The problem stems from most people being ill-equipped with the proper tools for how to curatively treat the problem. Here at SST we will equip you with the fundamental knowledge required to both identify and fix the problems of your health. With the free-knowledge provided on this website alone, you can begin transforming your unhealthy habits into a healthy lifestyle.
In conclusion, it is best to think about soft tissue (but namely fascia) as the steel structure of our anatomy. If we are a skyscraper, then our soft tissue (namely our fascia) acts as the steel framework. The difference between our bodies and a skyscraper is our bodies can function relatively well under asymmetrical imbalances - unlike a skyscraper which will collapse at any hint of asymmetrical imbalances. However, just because we are capable of operating day-to-day with chronic pain (which so many people do), it doesn’t mean that we have to. If only we would know better, and be better equipped with knowledge, could we all begin our journey towards getting healthy and sustaining our health for a lifetime.
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