Superficial Fascia Blowing My Mind
- Laura Welch
- Sep 23
- 3 min read
This summer was full of continuing education for me and although they were all wonderful, my streak ended with a bang of two courses that were focused on fascia. My ever-evolving treatment paradigm was whacked upside the head and I couldn't be more excited. One was called Treating Without Pain as taught by Australian occupational therapist transplant, Alison Taylor, and the other was Fascial Manipulation 2 as taught by the famous fascial researching Italian family, the Steccos. What I'm going to describe is a mash-up of these two courses in efforts to hopefully blow your mind too.
If you're wondering what exactly is fascia, check out my previous blog post about it here. This post is dedicated specifically to the superficial fascia and skin. Superficial fascia separates skin from the muscles and bones so that they can move independent of each other. Check this out: the skin is the most innervated tissue in the body (which means a lot of nerves everywhere!) and the superficial fascia is the second-most innervated. More nerves mean more opportunities for sensory information to be relayed to the brain. Here's the funny part, when our brain detects pain, no one hardly thinks about the skin and superficial fascia. Isn't that crazy?! Here we have two tissues that are the most abundant in nerve supply compared to other tissues in the body and yet it's the last thing on people's minds. Instead, we think first about deeper structures such as muscles, tendons, and ligaments as being the source of pain. It's not that these structures can't relay stimuli that is detected as pain, but the skin and superficial fascia are more likely to be involved. (1)
Let's say there is a cutaneous nerve being compressed or over stretched in the skin or superficial fascia. Our bodies will do whatever they can to decrease the tension on that nerve. As a result, we get funky posturing or movement strategies to try to skirt around that nerve getting irritated.
We also have blood vessels and lymphatic vessels that are in the superficial fascia. This is why long after a gnarly ankle sprain, you can still have a little pocket of edema (swelling) that hangs out in that ankle long after the tissue has healed. On the extreme end, some folks struggle with lymphedema, where areas of the body remain swollen and often fluctuate to an incredibly uncomfortable level. Address the skin and superficial fascia, and that edema will likely resolve.
Fun yucky fact: superficial fascia is involved when we have cellulite on our bodies. Due to restrictions in this fascia, we can have funny little compartments form of adipose tissue (fat) that we all love to hate.
Thinking about this giant continuous layer throughout our body, imagine what a scar can do. A scar causes that superficial fascial layer to tolerate 30% less stress than healthy tissue, which persists for years after the insult. (1) The pathway of superficial fascia in relationship to that scar can also be effected by the change in tension in the whole system. For example, in our course, Alison Taylor repeatedly mentioned people that have had abdominal surgery often develop shoulder pain.
So if we get a deep tissue massage, the superficial fascia will be taken care of, right? Wrong! Deep pressure blows through these layers, addressing the deeper one below and leaving the superficial one untreated. If something hurts, I challenge you to think about the skin and superficial fascia with a lighter touch and put the foam roller and massage balls aside.
What You Can Do:
Get treatment by someone who has studied Stecco's Fascial Manipulation. (ahem, me!)
Get handy tools that help you treat the superficial layers. Please take note that you do not press down hard with these tools. They are often held at a 45 degree angle and used with light pressure. You are looking for areas that feel "bumpy". If you have received treatment from me, you know what this bumping or clicking feels like :). Remember, healthy tissue is floppy or easy to move around and smooth to run a tool through. Some examples of tools I like:
Edge of a spoon :)
Mobilize every healed scar you own, no matter how old or how minor the injury was. Every scar and its underlying tissue needs to be wiggly in all directions without any puckering. Work the tissue around the scar too.
Fascia loves movement and an alkaline environment. Move often and ingest food that nurtures your body. The Mediterranean diet is a great place to start. (2)
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