FASCIA AND COORDINATION

by Eric Winder, DC

Most of us take physical coordination for granted. We don’t usually give much thought to the ability to move our bodies through space, to eat with a spoon or to swing a golf club. However, coordination is one of the key linchpins to health and quality of life.

Even if you are not a ballerina or a star athlete, you still are highly coordinated as a human. Just the basic actions of rising out of bed, walking down the street or brushing your teeth require an amazing level of coordinated contraction, tension and relaxation of the muscles that move your bones and joints.

This muscle orchestration isn’t just about movement from point A to point B.The muscles also need to maintain correct joint alignment and stability as you move to protect against injury. Even the simplest movements require finelytuned control, but what happens when there is a problem in this control system? in pain or injury. One important source of problems can be found in a key element of coordination––the tissue called fascia. Inside this fibrous connective tissue are millions of nerve endings for position sense. This position-sense information comes from fascia in the muscles, bones, joints and other bodily tissues.

If the information coming from fascia is confused, painful issues can result. This confusion can be caused by restriction or distortion in the fascia, creating a “wrench in the works.” Let’s look at the case of one of my patients as an example of this altered coordination. I recently treated an active, athletic young lady (I will refer to her as Mary) for shoulder pain. More than two years prior, Mary had torn her rotator cuff, but it healed and was pain-free until about one month before she came into my office. The pain started when she began a new intensive exercise program that required a lot of shoulder strength.

An exam showed restrictions in Mary’s fascia at three points around her shoulder joint, as well as the muscles between her shoulder blade and spine. She showed weakness in two important stabilizing muscles of the shoulder, which meant her shoulder joint was not always stable when strength was required. Fortunately, these muscles became strong immediately after treatment to release the fascia restrictions with gentle hands-on therapy. As a result, reaching above her head or behind her back became much easier and less painful. Ultimately, with further treatment, Mary became painfree.

Our Structural Fabric

Fascia can be thought of as a fabric to cover and connect all tissues. As it provides constant feedback to the nervous system about the position and motion of all of the parts of the body, fascia makes coordinated movement possible. But if there is restriction and distortion in this “structural fabric,” problems in coordination can result.

If position-sense feedback is distorted or confused, joint alignment and stability could suffer, resulting in shoulder pain, knee arthritis, hip bursitis or many other issues. Restoring pliability and tension to restricted fascia can restore the fine coordination that makes joint alignment and stability possible. Fascial release therapies can help all kinds of pain in the body with the use of gentle hands-on treatment.

Dr. Eric Winder has been practicing chiropractic for 25 years. His practice emphasizes relieving pain and restoring alignment and motion with gentle fascia release therapies. For more information, call 941-957-8390 or visit Gentlebay.com.