New to the Wellness Room | Fascial Stretch Therapy
What is Fascial Stretch Therapy (FST)?
Fascial Stretch Therapy is therapist assisted stretching performed on a massage table. The goal of therapy is to increase pain-free range of motion. Stabilization bands are used to isolate movement and stretch into specific bands of tissue. The therapy requires active participation from the client who is cued by the therapist to breathe and gently resist choreographed movements. A specific assisted-stretching technique called proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF) is used to facilitate the quick release of neuromuscular tension while simultaneously increasing mind-body connection.
What is fascia?
An extension of skin, fascia is the most prevalent, thin, translucent, fluid-filled, web-like tissue that surrounds all of the cells and structures of your body. Fascia is a connective tissue that supports your bodily structure through a combination of tensile forces that hold you up right and give your body shape. Without fascia, you would collapse into a pile of muscle fibers and bones onto the floor! To understand the interconnectedness of muscle and fascia, consider a link of sausages: the outer plastic casing is comparable to fascia, both connecting and separating the sausage meat or muscle tissue inside one link to the next (the pectoralis minor muscle is linked to the biceps brachii muscle through a specific line of fascia that can be followed all the way down to its insertion at your thumb). To stretch individual muscles alone is out-dated, misguided, and ultimately impossible.
How is FST different?
While massage therapy can feel good and certainly has its place in tuning the nervous system into a state of restfulness and relaxation, it is not uncommon for clients receiving massage to remain completely passive for the duration of their treatment. Without movement, permanent structural change is nearly impossible. With the exception of cross-fiber friction massage applied to an already injured tissue (that will most certainly be a painful experience for the client), or deep myofascial contouring (again, painful), massage is relatively ineffective at inducing permanent structural change, particularly without proper homecare, like yoga.
A Fascial Stretch Therapy session differs from massage in many ways. Clients remain clothed (in yoga or athletic attire) and initially very little is required of them outside of focusing on breath to properly tune the nervous system. The client remains passive while the therapist assesses for limitation in flexibility and mobility by gently moving the client into various positions/stretches sometimes resembling yoga poses (like pigeon, or dancers pose). Once a limitation has been identified, the client and therapist work together to find a pain-free edge and use a series of active, passive and resisted movements to decrease fascial adhesions and increase range of motion at the joint capsule. While one session is nearly always enough to increase joint mobility, weekly sessions may be recommended to sustain and/or improve upon mobility gains, in addition to a daily homecare movement routine.
Who can benefit?
While FST was originally created to address the flexibility and mobility limitations of professional athletes in the NFL, nearly everyone can benefit. Yoga practitioners, while typically flexible, do not necessarily have optimal joint mobility. Mobility refers to the useable range of motion freely available at each joint (where bone meets another bone). While yoga is quite effective at progressively changing the shape of connective tissue, there is a tendency for yoga practitioners to move within the path of least resistance leading to a strengthening of preferred movement patterns and relative flexibility, while failing to explore less comfortable and less familiar sensations and ranges. Cyclists, also, are particularly susceptible to a loss of range of motion due to the effects of a repetitively strained and adapting fascial system. As the opportunity for varied movement exists even less when connected to a bike, the amount of range available to cyclists can easily become restricted without proper flexibility and mobility training.
A Fascial Stretch Therapist will help to identify restrictions in your movement and to increase the range of motion available at each of the major joints in your body. FST is indicated for those seeking mobility and flexibility gains, improved posture, pain relief, even improved sleep.
Book your appointment with Breanne, one of Calgary’s only Registered Massage Therapists certified in Fascial Stretch Therapy, at Passage Studios Wellness Center, starting November 2019.