The Athletic Renaissance

Have you heard of fascia? You should have. It’s just as important of muscles. Athletic trainers tell people to stretch, roll out, and massage your muscles. What about your fascia?

Fascia is a three-tiered layer of tissue that encases tissues and organs. What’s so special? Fascia is the only tissue that modifies its consistency when under stress. And it’s everywhere, meaning it affects just about everything.

Layers of connective tissue are everywhere! (4)

It hasn’t been researched much and is often put to the side in medical school. Only recently has it gained traction. Dr. Langevin at the Osher Center For Integrative Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital discussed this “new organ” in 2018. She noted it could be beneficial for cancer spread and metastasis (1).

“Fascia is what holds us together. There are very few diseases that don’t have a fascia component,” said Frederick Grinnell, a professor of cell biology at the UT Southwestern Medical School (2).

Every structure in the whole body is connected with or enveloped by fascia. So, if this organ is out of balance, imagine what it can do to you. There’s a reason professional athletes are unbelievably athletic.

It’s fascia. Not muscle. Can a IFBB PRO bodybuilder run a 4.2 second 40-yard dash? No. They’d be lucky to run under 5 seconds. Muscle certainly holds a place for sports as a shield from contact, but it’s fascia that propels humans to million-dollar athleticism.

Dr. Helene Langevin, Harvard University:

“Fascia is what holds us together. It’s a net that suspends your organs, a high-tech adhesive that holds your cells in place while relaying messages between them. The network is so extensive and ubiquitous that if you were to lose every organ, muscle, bone, nerve and blood vessel, your body would still retain its shape.” (3)

I’ll touch more on this later in the “Modern World: Modern Problems” chapter. Athletic training is a trend. If one person says this is right, others will follow. It’s a domino effect of misinformation. On social media, athletic trainers gain additional revenue from interactions.

How do you receive more interactions? Cool exercises.

People will scroll past abdominal crunches. But when it’s on a BOSU ball with resistance bands and reflex training lights? They’ll watch the whole thing.

If you offered an athletic trainer a million dollars to convert a non-athletic guy to an all-star athlete, they wouldn’t be able to. It doesn’t matter if they graduated from Harvard or train franchise players. NFL trainers train NFL-athletic caliber players, not create them.

Whether you’re an athlete or work an office job, everyone wants to move efficiently, painlessly, and gracefully.

Humans are animals. The whole purpose of this book is to show that the answer is in nature.

In nature, the golden ratio is apparent everywhere—DNA molecules, flower petals, and shells to name a few.

“Spirality is an emergent property of tension-compression balance, emerging in the way things grow,” wrote Karen Kirkness, author of Spiral Bound: Integrated Anatomy for Yoga, on The Fascia Hub (4).

The spiral structure of human tissue allows for the transmission of force through the tensegral fascial body, which is one of the reasons why humans have the best endurance of all animals.

Since I’m only in high school, it’d be boring to keep rambling on scientific journal after another.

Now that you know a bit about connective tissue, let’s get to how to improve it.

All too often on my intellectual adventure would an author state “X matters” or “Y is vital” but never provide the ingredients of the recipe. It’s time for me to provide you with what I know.

First things first, fascia is tissue. It adapts. As mentioned earlier, it adapts to stress. So what happens when you sleep four hours a day, stress about your job, and don’t exercise? Your fascia tightens, and now you feel even tighter, and your whole mood is affected, and fascial adhesions start to form.

So, as a reminder: don’t stress every day. It’s impossible to not be stressed at certain times. Just don’t be stressed constantly.

Every part of your body will thank you.

Second: Let’s start connecting fascia to the modern world, the whole point of this book.

Think of the shoes in your closet. How many do you think are flat from the heel to the toe? The truth is not many. The common shoes now: Nike Air Maxes or Air Jordan’s are all raised at the heel. It’s even worse for high heels.

It’s hard to blame people for wearing these types of shoes.

It’s trendy. It’s fashionable. It’s comfortable.

True be told, they’re comfortable because your Achilles tendon isn’t stretching as much.

What’s one of the top rehabilitation exercises for Achilles tendonitis? Heel drops, where you lengthen the tendon. You can do this with every step if you wear

As I’ll soon explore deeper, the feet control everything. They’re where fascia is most important.

The greatest athletes in the world can get away with wearing Nikes and Adidas shoes because their feet are molded from childhood and their genetics gave them an anatomical head start.

You?

Not so much.

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1. Osher. (2018). The “New Organ” in the News: Is It Real and What Does It Mean? [YouTube Video]. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygUvpADY0jo
2. Damiani, R., & Spiker, T. (2019, January 26).Everywhere in your body is tissue called fascia. Scientists are unlocking its secrets.Washington Post; The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/everywhere-in-your-body-is-tissue-called-fascia-scientists-are-unlocking-its-secrets/2019/01/25/e0414e3e-f4e0-11e8-80d0-f7e1948d55f4_story.html
3. Aterah Nusrat. (2017, November 10).Conversations that Matter with Helene Langevin on the Science of Stretch. Osher Center for Integrative Medicine. https://oshercenter.org/2017/11/10/conversations-langevin-science-stretch/
4. The World of Spirals - The Fascia Hub. (2021). The Fascia Hub. https://thefasciahub.com/blog/the-world-of-spirals-2