In this episode
Show notes
What is fascia? Michael breaks it down in a simple and clear manner.
He describes fascia as a web of connective tissue that exists everywhere in your body from head to toe. He elaborates that it has an airy web-like quality to it and a spread out nature and structure that allow for its elasticity. He breaks down the difference between fascia and other parts of the body such as ligaments and tendons, shedding light on the physical property of fascia.
Michael also dives into the emotional elements of fascia, going in depth about how nerves and fascia exist as best friends right on top of each other. They are responding to one another. When it comes to emotions being stored in the body, fascia is where emotions that are not processed are stored. He talks about the reality of childhood and many of the unresolved traumas we have that live in our fascia.
Through physical examples as well as some imaginative and visual examples, Michael paints a wide picture of what this thing called fascia really is and why it is so important in general, and especially in regards to yoga. He rounds out the episode diving into the breath and sharing how important conscious breathing is when we are working with fascia through stretching, massage, or just in our normal day to day lives.
Become a fascia expert in no time with today’s short episode!
The IN Movement Podcast was formerly the Going Pro Yoga Podcast — and before that, the Yoga Teacher Evolution Podcast and the Rat Race Rebellion Podcast. Same mission, evolved name.
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Hello and welcome back to the Going Pro Yoga. Podcast Michael Henry here and I'm excited to talk with you about. Fascia, welcome to the Going Pro Yoga Podcast. If you love yoga as much as I do, then this podcast is. For you, we talk all things yoga related. For teachers in order to supplement and complement and even support after a 200 hour yoga teacher training or if you've never done a training before. This podcast is all about just learning more about yoga in an authentic way.
Together with Paul Tioto and Byron De Marseille, we put together this podcast to provide you with a free resource to learn more about yoga. Whether you want to share yoga or teach yoga or just practice yoga, this podcast is talking all things yoga related. And we're trying to talk from the teacher's perspective. And also the students perspective to make sure we get a full 360 degree angle on what yoga is all about and how it's evolved in the modern world.
Welcome to our podcast What is Fasha? And I'm going to be doing this. Just me. There's no one else here. Byron's not here today. No guests. Just me sitting. At the table going to share my understanding, my knowledge and my perspective of what Fasha is and how fascinating.
It is and how our evolution of understanding of what? Fasha is. Is extremely important in yoga, but then also just. In life in general. So this podcast could probably be really, really long. So I'm going to try to keep it succinct to, let's just say, a 101 version of what fascia is, assuming that you know, maybe a little bit about it, you heard about it.
So let's make sure that we have some foundations, That's what we're going to cover. And then also we'll just dive into a little bit more deeply about the connections, pun intended, of what fascia? Does with your brain, your nervous system and your everyday activities emotions to some level, right? So let's just start with what is fossia? So fossia is a web.
Of connective tissue, which is everywhere in your. Body from head to toe. So connective tissue is a type of tissue that actually connects 2 things together. Right. So you have other types of connective tissue in your body, like ligaments and tendons, which both connect one thing to another thing.
So a ligament connects a bone to another bone. Right. Which you have around all your joints, your major joints, and a tendon is a connective tissue as well which? Connects your muscle. Muscle fibers the muscle belly to the bone so that whenever it contracts, it moves the bone right.
So tendon is a a connective tissue, a ligament. Is a connective tissue and fossia. Is a connective tissue. So connective tissue is all about connecting things together. Now, what's the major difference between ligaments, tendons and fossia? Well, ligaments and tendons are quite thick, dense connective tissue, so there's a bit of strength and resistance to, let's just say, overstretching or going too. Far into a joint, for example.
So there's a protective mechanism of the fossia being. Stronger and thicker with those two. Ligaments and tendons, whereas fossia, wash is made-up of connective tissue, but it's. Not thick and dense, it's more spaced out and let's just say airy, like a spider's.
Web Where it's still made-up of the same stuff but because of its spread out nature or. It allows for what's called elasticity or the ability to. Expand or stretch or lengthen. So that's the first thing to kind of think about in your head. But then you're like.
OK, So what is FOSSA exactly? So it's like this web thing. That's in your body? Yeah, kind of. But it's more so that this web of connective tissue that's everywhere in your body is allowing you to connect all. Parts of your body together, but then also allows you to move.
In certain ways and stretch. In certain ways and also keep form and stay connected. So the best way that I've learned to understand what fossia is, is to use. Examples, of course, right. So there's a couple examples that float around. I'll share a couple of them.
But I think the thing that's most important to understand is that fossia is a very difficult thing to understand and to kind of like download. Into the brain because it's not as simple as, Oh yeah, a muscle, a bone. A ligament. I get that.
OK. A vein. An artery. A heart stomach. Those things are very clear and it's very easy to understand what those things are, you know, especially if you Google it and you look at an image, you're like, oh, that's that's what that is, right? Fascia.
If you Google fascia, you know, sometimes it's not super clear. It's just like looks like a bunch of like, white stuff and it's kind of like, wait, what is it? And there's no like clear defined like structure of what it looks like, you know, like this fascia in the bottom of your foot looks different from the fascia in your back compared to the fascia that surrounds your finger, compared to the fascia that surrounds your hip and so on, right.
So Googling it and getting visual visual of it would be helpful. But there isn't really that simple luxury that we have when we talk about fosha. It's kind of like thinking about. So what I've learned is that when people are learning about fosha for the first. Space and when you think about space and how space. Just continues on forever and ever and the galaxies and there's like I don't even can't even know I'm not in the space to know this.
But basically if you think about how, it just never. Ends and it just goes on forever and ever. Your brain starts to kind of like almost feel uncomfortable. Or at least that's what I feel. That's kind of what happens, I think, when you think about. If you don't fully understand what it is, even if you do, it's still kind of like, it's kind of everywhere in between everything within your body, right?
It's not as simple as like, oh, it's just. Here and it's just there and it does this thing. It's very complex, It's very intricate. So let's just see if we can kind of unpack this a little bit. So if you were to imagine that your body is.
A container? A container that, let's just give it a very simple. Container like a cylindrical shape or like a jar, a big jar and right now it's an empty jar. And you're gonna fill that jar up with the parts that make up your anatomy. Right.
And we'll use something that is easy to kind of visualize, like let's say balls, like a tennis balls, golf balls, marbles, some rocks, stuff like this, right. And you're going to use those elements to represent parts of your anatomy.
So the bones, let's just say the bones are the tennis balls. You throw a whole bunch of these tennis balls in this. Jar right? And then you have some ligaments. Maybe you throw some small little marbles. In there to represent the ligaments and then you have muscles, so you throw some some golf balls in. There to represent your muscles and then maybe some smaller rocks to represent your veins, your arteries, You know, in different shape rocks and marbles. To represent your your heart,
your stomach and all this stuff, right? So you kind of put it all in this jar and you have all the elements that make up you the. Ones that we're familiar with, right. The ones that we learned in biology class at 1:00 point in time, Now there's going to be a certain amount of space in between.
All of these little structures that are in your jar. So if I were to. Come by and take a big bag of sand and start to pour sand into your jar. The sand is going to fall and kind of fill in the gaps everywhere in between all of these structures.
The tennis balls, The golf balls. Everything in between right? Small spaces, big spaces, It's going to fill it up, this is. What your fossia is, your fascia is what fills in all. The spaces and all the gaps within your body that connects everything to everything.
The space between your muscles. The space. Between your skin and your muscles, the space between your bone and your muscles, there's a little bit of fascia that's allowing everything to be connected together. So This is why fascia is a little bit tricky.
Sometimes to understand is because it is. It's not as simple as like, you know. You have a bicep. It's like no, you have. Fascia that's everywhere from head to toe. Like we said at the beginning of this podcast, So that's the first thing to think about. Another way of kind of imagining this is to use the orange example or grapefruit.
And if you peel an orange and you take? Off the the the orange layer and then underneath that. You have the white part underneath which no one really likes. This bitter little, not so good taste of the orange that you throw.
Away right? That part is also would be considered the fascia. That you would have let's. Just say underneath your skin. So if the orange. Peel in your skin represented as the same thing, and you peeled off that orange. Peel and underneath you have that white stuff. You have the same idea underneath your skin. If you peeled back your skin, which please don't do that, you would have a underlying layer of. Fascia that sits underneath your skin, but to go even deeper than that?
And using the orange is the same example if you were to remove all that fascia or remove all that white stuff from the orange and then you were to take a slice of orange out. And kind of look at the orange. You can see that orange slice has something that's wrapping around the orange slice.
Like, you know, it's got a little bit of that white stuff, almost like a like a layer, right? And that layer which keeps the orange slice together. Is kind of like the same level of. Fascia that surrounds your muscle, right?
The Myofascia to be specific and then if you were to go even deeper into. This right? And you take that orange slice and you. Crack that open. You, you know, break it apart and you look inside that orange slice. You have these small. Little droplets of orange that are also being. Held together and connected together by a certain thin, almost transparent kind of almost white structure. And that is also.
A level of fascia within the orange, let's just say, and then comparing it back to the human body if you. Were to take part of your muscle and start to, you know, look more deeply into the fibers of your muscle, the muscle.
All your muscle fibers are also going to be wrapped and connected to other muscle fibers by. This fossia, this connective tissue. So it's easy to understand fossia in like large perspective ways. Like the fascia on the bottom of your foot called your planter fascia.
Planter fosciitis being the inflammation of that. Fascia on the bottom of your foot, which I'm sure some people can are very familiar with, but then there's certain levels of fascia that are. So deep and so small that are still connecting things together, but it's not as obvious. Right.
It's like the fascia between your muscles, the fascia. Between you know that your finger and. You know your knuckle. Like your your index finger and then the connection to your knuckle. Like there's just little layers of fascia everywhere.
So basically what I'm trying to say is you have almost like this full. Exoskeleton of this connective tissue, that is. Keeping your body all connected together. So if we were to do the opposite of what most scientists have done in the last couple, 100 years is dissect the human body, what they've done is they've removed all the fascia to be able to look at the cooler things like the muscles, the bones, the nerves, the organs.
Right. So any time that I've done study with cadavers, which is dead bodies. That were donated to science. There was never any fossia layers. At least in my time, there was never any fossia. Layers that were there to be studied or to learn from. But now, in the last two to three decades or so, Foss is becoming more of an emerging interest, especially in the world of yoga.
It was always about looking at those other. And even though we're kind of unpacking it now, it's something that is becoming even more important as it relates to. Your nervous system and also athleticism as well, right? So there's lots of ways we can go about talking about this, but let's just talk about. The nervous system first, because I think that one. Is probably one of the more important ones, and that is the concept of, well, first of all, if we go back to this big. Jar analogy or visualization?
And we have all the sand that's connecting all these little structures. Together if I were to allow or not allow, but if I were to say to you. That your nerves are going to connect to all the parts of your anatomy to be able to, you know, move your muscles to stimulate your organs and all this stuff they need to connect.
To your nervous system. So your brain, if you put your brain on top of your jar. Right, your brain is going to extend these nerves down. Into your jar to connect to all these structures. And the way that they're going to do that is they're going to travel through your fascia.
Meaning they're going to travel through the sand, right? So your nerves and your fascia are super well connected, right? I like to call them best friends. They're just like. They're. They're right on top of each other. Right. So when you're the fascia responds to movement to stretch your nervous system immediately.
Notices and and responds back right and vice versa. So very well connected the nervous system of the fascia. Is, and there's a few implications that what this means. But the thing that seems to be most important and most relevant to a lot of people, especially in the yoga space, is how emotions.
Are stored in the body, right? We talk about emotional release. Emotions being stored in the hips, emotions being stored or stress being stored in the shoulders and the neck and all this stuff. Like, everyone's used to some level this kind of language, right?
So how does that actually work? How does emotions get stored in the body? Well, emotions get stored within your fascia. The fascia. So your fascia is the area of your body that is considered the storage for unprocessed. Emotions or emotions aren't able to fulfill its completion of processing and therefore they kind of get. Suppressed and pushed down right. This language should.
Probably sound somewhat familiar. So the suppression of emotions or the the avoidance of acknowledging. Emotions in order for it to kind of like be. Processed or fully completed, it needs to be felt and. Expressed and so on.
But a lot of times in life we don't get to do that. Because, you know, we're focusing on other things. We're focusing on work survival to some deeper level and therefore we don't have time or we don't have the, maybe we don't even have the tools to process certain emotions, right.
So those emotions need to go somewhere and they need to, they need to be burnt. That energy needs to be used, it needs to be expressed, it needs to flow out, right. So if it's not being. Acknowledged it's not being expressed, then it goes somewhere, right?
Maybe in your toes. So emotions are something that is extremely complicated. And this is really not the focus of this podcast, but if we're talking about emotions in the. We're talking about trauma in the body. Well, trauma is another conversation.
Which we have plenty of episodes to talk about that. But trauma is the body's response to an event in your nervous system's response to that event. And if the nervous system is overwhelmed from some sort of emotional event, then what will likely happen?
Depending on the circumstances if if this the event is not. Suitable to be a good time to process what is happening or. If it's so overwhelming and the support systems or the. The person that is experiencing the event doesn't have the tools to be able to process. What's they're feeling and what they're noticing, then that emotion has to go somewhere.
And it will go into the body and into the fossa specifically. So when we're younger, right? When we're younger, we have what? People will call like, you know, a lot of childhood trauma and all this stuff and. You know, there's generational trauma.
There's lots of conversations. That we can have and I don't want to go into those things, but what I do want to say is that. We all have a lot, a certain amount of emotions, probably a lot. I don't want to say a certain amount.
There's a lot of emotions that are. Stored in the body. A lot of potential energy. Right. A lot of energy in our body that is, let's just say. Represented as emotions that is stored within. Our hips within, you know, certain areas of our body. And it's not just the hips.
First of all, I like to let people understand that the reason why we say that there's a lot of emotions that. Store in the hips is because the hips. Are are very large part of your anatomy? You know, if you think about the amount of dense tissue.
Muscle tissue, connective tissue, bones around your hips. Like there's a lot there, right? So you just think of it. As a bigger storage area for emotions to go, you can still have. Emotions and you know layers and your toes and your fingers and your back, your neck.
You know your arms, your shins. So emotions can be stored anywhere. In the body and it really just depends on what you're doing at the time of that emotion being felt. But that's another conversation. What I was going to say is because we have so many emotions that are felt especially. When we're younger and talking about you know. Trauma and stuff like that.
When we're younger we don't have the ability to process emotions very well, usually because of our brain development and not having the tools to do it and really not being able to what we call self regulate. Our nervous system.
So when we're younger, we're very dependent on. Co regulation from our parent, our guardian, someone who can help us to process those emotions, or at least work out those emotions to some level. Or feel supported, feel loved and so on right. So the the reality is is when it comes to emotions is we all have the certain.
Level of emotional baggage that is stored within ourselves or. Stored within our fascia, which is unavoidable. As a human, that's just the way it is. But it's interesting to just know more about how this all works. From a science perspective.
From a from a perspective of anatomy, or. Physiology, if you will, and I'm sure there's some. Questions like how does you know, how does this all work and stuff like that. And you know, if you do have questions, you can reach. Out and ask and I can talk more about it. Podcast at going proyoga.com.
Otherwise, I just kind of wanted to give it a quick one-on-one introduction to what fascia is and how fascinating it is and how it can expand into so much more both. Literally and figuratively. So Fasha, to me is one of the things that I think about. On a regular basis?
When I'm doing activities, when I'm stretching. When I'm doing yoga or if I'm like you know, doing massage or for you know, I'm receiving massages and saying not giving one or I'm doing myofascial release work and stuff like this and that is my fascia is a part of my anatomy that needs to be.
Considered with regards to how it will respond to what's going on around me, right? And to talk about the nervous system it. Would be a. You know, I could do this on a whole other podcast, but your nervous system is constantly. Collecting information from the environment around you and from that your body is responding or reacting in a particular way. So when that happens.
Your fascia will also probably respond in a particular way. If you feel afraid or you know something's feeling fearful or there's a concern that's around, your body might start to constrict, tighten in certain areas and part of that.
Quick response is. Going to be your fossia. That's actually going to do that. I mean, sure, your muscles will probably do that to some level, but your fossia is going to be the initial primary thing. That's going to start that action.
And that constriction that happens could limit your ability to, let's say, function or move or stretch or relax if you're getting a massage, for example. So all this to say that one of the most important things is that your fossia and your nervous system are. Super well connected and one of the best ways. And if not?
The best way to connect with your nervous system is through your breath in breathing. So ultimately, what I'm saying is in order for you to connect with your. Fossia or in order for you to release tension in your fascia, in order for you to release emotions in your.
Fascia to createspace within your fascia. Or just in your body in general. We need to breathe, and I'm not. Talking just regular old inhales and exhales because, you know, we do that. On a regular basis in order to survive. I'm talking about like intentional breathing or you're actually focusing on the breath.
You're doing what we call breath control, Ronnie. I'ma practice. Like intentional, you're doing it with a purpose that's going to help regulate your nervous system and communicate to you that you are feeling safe. Hopefully the environment reflects that as well, otherwise it'll be difficult to enter that regulated state.
So let's. Just say you're at home. In your room or, you know, in your villa if you're living in Bali. But you know, the doors are closed, the windows are closed, and you're just kind of in a safe space and you are feeling anxious, You're feeling a lot of emotions or, you know, just something.
You're feeling stressed if you really just focus on your breath and breath control. That's going to help to regulate your nervous system, right? Which actually allows your body to soften. You know what part of your body is softening? It's the fossia.
The fossia will soften, it'll createspace it'll it'll remove. Some of that restriction and that tightness, so. Breathing is a direct connection to your nervous system, and your nervous system is directly connected to your fossia, right?
There's some things in between there with regards to how emotions get stored in there and you know, maybe we'll. Talk about that on another podcast, but ultimately. Because FOSHA is such a new and interesting concept, I just wanted to kind of give you guys a little one-on-one on what Fosha is and kind of have a visual of what it is and also just the impact that it has on your body that it has on your emotions. And your state of being so if we're holding a lot of. Emotional tension.
Stress because we're not in balance because. Of our work, lifestyle, leisure and stuff like that. Then it's really important to connect back to the breath in order. To allow your body to soften, to relax and to release some of this tension.
So yeah, really always, always just comes back to to breathing, right? So that's probably all we're going to cover for today is just talking about that basics of fascia and how it connects everything to everything within your body from a physiological perspective or anatomical perspective. But then also how it's just so strongly connected to your nervous system, you know, imagining this this container. Where the sand is filling everything in between and the nerves.
Are traveling through that sand in order to connect with all the. The different parts of you so. With Basha, I think if you're interested to learn more about it, I think the best thing to do is to just notice your body. And how it feels and how it might soften when you are connecting with your breath, especially when you're practicing yoga. Especially when you're practicing in yoga, right? One of the most.
Important things to do in Ian yoga practice is to connect with your breath and to surrender to gravity the. Surrendering of gravity allows your tissues to stretch, which is the added benefit of yin. But the YIN is not really about stretching, it's about connecting with your nervous system, which is ultimately. Saying connecting with your fossia. So yeah, let's just go with that. And we'll build on this on another episode, But for now, I. Feel like?
That's a good one-on-one on what fosha is, so hopefully you feel pretty content with that. If you're feeling thirsty for more, just reach out podcast at goingproyoga.com. I'm happy to expand on any of these particular areas I tried.
To give a general understanding overall, but I'm always happy to talk about more. I also just, you know, like smaller episodes personally myself and I don't like. To drag them on too long. So thank you so much for listening for today's episode. And as always, much love I have.
Any questions, let us know and we'll speak to you next week. Take care. All right. Before you go, let me just tell you about the Goingpro yoga.com platform. So right now you can go to goingproyoga.com and check it out for.
Free for seven days where you can actually learn more about yoga in the ways of alignment, cueing, sequencing, yoga, anatomy. So that if you've done a 200 hour teacher training and you want to continue to learn, practice and grow, this platform is definitely for you.
So I definitely suggest checking it out goingproyoga.com right now. You can try it out for free for seven days.
