Ep. 35 - This episode is super FASCIAnating...lol

Fascia

: [: 00:03:00

If you cut your skin, what is a cut?

Why is it so hard to break a bone? Why does your skin have texture? How does your skin stretch so much without tearing or ripping? Why do your arms and legs stay attached to your body? How come someone can't just pull on your arm and rip it off.

How come you can pull on your skin and it goes right back. How come your nails don't just literally pull off or your fingers or your toes.

d structure? It's called [: 00:04:00

It is extremely difficult to describe what fascia is. What it looks like, how it functions, especially all of its role. So I'm going to do my best. To try and sort this out a little bit. Kind of help you get a visual on your mind, maybe. So you're going to have to use your imagination a little bit.

It's still sort of a newer discovery of the body, because for so long science thought, it was just in the way. When they were trying to do things like surgery or cadaver work. They kept having to move it aside to get to the organ.

Which they never realized was just as important as the organ.

Now they know that's not the case. This episode.

It is my opinion, and this is just my opinion. The fascia is the number one physical structure in your body. It is the most important physical structure and probably has more to do with your overall health than anything else does.

I'll explain a lot of [: 00:05:00

Of course, your organs are really important, but the organ is made up of connective tissue. Or known as fascia. F a s c i a.

It is such a phenomenal part of our body. I'm going to do my best to try and describe it. But I know that I can't.

Do it justice. And it's going to be hard for you to fall along with what I'm trying to describe to you. It's so dynamic and incredible. You have to kind of see it. So I recommend going online, looking up photos and videos, showing this.

If your fascia is not healthy. Then those organs are not going to be healthy. You'll have rigidity and stiffness.

rt of like crystallizing the [: 00:06:00

It would be like taking a flexible rubber mesh substance and freezing it. And then you try and stretch it out. It's just going to crack and break.

You have more fascia in your body than you have anything else?

It basically wraps all the structures of your body individually. And then as a whole. It's also like rigging. Picture a sailboat and all those ropes and things. And.

Pulleys and. Knots. And tie downs. That would be like the rigging of this fascia. In your body.

Another way to look at it. As you could picture a water balloon. And your heart is in it. Or your kidney.

The rubber of the balloon would be the fascia. And then you have fluids that would be the water in the balloon. And then.

Where you would blow up [: 00:07:00

A grapefruit. It literally gives you all your shape.

So in the case of an orange or a grapefruit, especially the grapefruit. If you cut. Through their halfway cross section.

That's what it looks like. And then a more visceral experience would be to. Try and start peeling the peel away, you know, the. The peel, the rind.

. All of the stuff. Which is [: 00:08:00

If you take the skin. Off of a chicken breast. Fascia is what holds the skin to the breast meat. If you try and take the muscle. Off of the carcass. Fascia is what's holding it to the carcass.

It is. Totally. Like a network of fractal. Structures that. Can shift and move along.

pider web material too. It's [: 00:09:00

It's constantly resetting itself and then restructuring itself. So it changes to its environment.

When you look at it in the photos and the videos, there's like these tendrils.

Like many ropes. Or fishing line, if you're familiar with what fishing line looks like, it's clear and strong.

These tendrils are grabbing onto each other all over the place. And they're constantly changing and moving and shifting. And if they split, they create two more tendrils. It's. Amazing when you see it.

Then they can move along each other, like a Slipknot. Constantly changing its position. Almost like a sliding joint. Like, uh, Rope connected to another rope and where the rope connects to that rope. There's a little joint and you can slide that back and forth. Fascia tendrils are actually doing that all the time.

Then inside of it, you can see water traveling through it. Cause it's clear.

so dynamic. That it actually [: 00:10:00

It surrounds places like muscles. And then these tendrils, see, they generally go parallel to the muscle fibers. But in sort of like a wavy pattern. Hard to describe with words. But the basic idea.

Is that.

They can stretch. With the muscle and that keeps it together. And this gliding. One on top of the other. Is the most important part.

So if you have bad fascia,

Tendrils are literally going all over the place in a tangled up net. Kind of a looking thing there's too much of it. And it's not hydrated. It's sticky. It's too. Dense.

em. They're actually sliding [: 00:11:00

That's fascia. One representation of it. And if you were to get down microscopically, you look at it. It's crazy looking. Like a net going all over the place in this 3d fashion. Now this hyaluronic acid is amazing stuff. And. Fascia creates it on purpose. And we'll get into that a little bit. Further here. I'm sure you may have heard of it.

but it's not technically the [: 00:12:00

I'm going to say fascia a lot in this episode because that's what we're referring to. And it's kind of hard not to. Collagen isn't. The full end game. It's just part of it. So that's why I'm not talking about collagen and specifically. Now.

This sliding motion. Is basically fascia on top of fascia. If it doesn't have adequate hydration, it can't make hyaluronic acid. Which is kind of like a lubricant. So when that. Can't slide back and forth. You lose range of motion. And that's where it's uncomfortable to do just about anything. Cause you're forcing that to happen, which then you damage that fascia. And since it has nerve endings, you might feel soreness. Oh, yeah, you don't just feel soreness for muscles.

round and doing nothing. The [: 00:13:00

So when you're sore from doing something that you don't normally do, sometimes it's just the fascia changing because it has the nerve endings. And then the muscle is fine. It's the fascia. That's actually the one that's changed. And some places it's soft and supple stretchy. And then in other areas it can be dense or rigid. Super strong, even sticky.

Or it can be tightly woven like tendons or that it band that, that goes down the outside of your leg. One that when that thing doesn't feel good, boy, you feel it in all kinds of areas.

e ropes. And that's what you [: 00:14:00

When you do, let's say weightlifting or anything like that, you aren't actually doing anything to your fascia. Your fascia actually responds to that muscle movement. And changes itself. So technically you're not doing anything to your actual fascia. I know it seems counterintuitive, but that's the way it actually is.

They can see it.

You have. These really large bands of it. For example.

ike an inner clothing, so to [: 00:15:00

holding in all your guts.

It's a magnificent design.

r holding the handlebars for [: 00:16:00

Does it. Uh, universal fascia network. Yeah. You've heard stretching. And you should be flexible. You've heard this your whole life. Here's the difference. Stretching. They thought was just to warm the muscles. It didn't really know why you stretched. It was a good idea. Well, now we know it's because of the fascia.

If you don't [: 00:17:00

You actually can increase blood flow and oxygenation by stretching that alone can help the fascia. And then the fascia. Can also help the circulation. And the oxygenation. So it's this two way street. One of the worst things you can do and people are doing it all day now is sitting. Every day, you're bent over in this posture and your body facia grows this way to hold you in that way, because that's actually how it's designed. To keep you together. As a whole human being made up of all your tissues, otherwise your tissues would just have no structure and would be a mess laying on the floor.

You would just disintegrate into a. A pile of flesh.

So then when you get up from sitting, you say, oh, wow. I am so stiff.

I[: 00:18:00

guess what that stiffness is. Oh yeah. That is. Your fascial structure.

The whole fascial structure in your body from your upper torso, all the way down into your legs and all the way around your waist. Around your buttocks. Or the criss-cross band cross the back of your whole body. When you train only, what's called sagittal.

These are the type of exercises. Let's say you're standing, you're doing bicep curls.

You're just facing forward. You're lifting your arms while standing. Or squats. You're just facing forward. You squat down, you stand back up. You're only training the fascia. To do. What's called a sagittal plane. That's S a G I T T a L sagittal plane. That is forward backward. Then the next plane is called a coronal plane. Now that's 90 degrees to the sagittal plane.

ng your arms outward to your [: 00:19:00

The most neglected plane in training and exercise. It's called the twist. Where your body twists clockwise or counter-clockwise

as a visual look down like you had a camera above your body and when you twist you're turning clockwise or counterclockwise. So when you train the larger fascia through different movements, your fascia can do sagittal coronal and twisting planes. Basically. Forward backward movements is sagittal left and right.

Movements is coronal. And then twisting movements are well twisting.

orced those planes with you, [: 00:20:00

If you're cognizant of this, then you can train or exercise or do things to counteract that. Kind of along the same lines, give you a quick.

Example of this.

I was told that.

hat way they're not building [: 00:21:00

Now here's a caveat. Don't overdo, twisting. Till you have the ability that you can actually safely do it.

That can do some serious damage to your spine. If you don't know what you're doing or you're not there yet. So if you want to do a twisting action, go really slow. There's no hurry. Work with a chiropractor work with a, a.

Physical therapist or a yoga person or somebody who understands this. But if you're just doing it at home, which you can do at home, don't push it. Go slow. Whatever, if you want to do 10 on one side, you do 10 on the other. Always do it both ways.

can't even twist at all. And [: 00:22:00

That can tell you. How off you are.

If you can't twist very good. This could be a good indication. Of why everything hurts all the time, because your fascia is not.

amazingly. Connected to your [: 00:23:00

And then you pulled a muscle or you strained it from working out.

Oh, wow. That would hurt so much worse than it already does. Also because all these nerve endings nerve fibers. It helps you with what's called proprioception. If you've never heard that term. It's awesome. And it's so cool to think about. Basically it's knowing where you are in 3d space.

Are you sitting up? Standing bending over. Are you in a cold environment? Are you in a hot environment? Is it wind blowing? All these sensory experiences.

Our known as proprioception. Now.

, where, what you're feeling [: 00:24:00

Are you about to fall over? Are you standing up straight? All these different. Types of feelings that your body has to know where you are in 3d space.

And guess what? It's also the opposite. It also has the ability for interoception. That's knowing what's going on on the inside of your body.

This is why now scientists are starting to believe that it's fully connected as one large organ. Working together. Not just individual organs or tissues on their own.

at our body as this physical [: 00:25:00

Which of course. As we've talked about. You know, this autonomic nervous system idea that I keep harping on is really important because if this fascia system is working together for all communication and awareness in an outside your body, This is incredible. This is. Dramatic in understanding your overall health. Not only. Does it cause you pain, if you don't take care of it. But then it can't communicate very well to tell you're about to fall over. That you don't know if you're balancing properly or not.

Or that your digestion's working properly.

It can't communicate very well. So.

y. This is why I think quite [: 00:26:00

Substance or tissue. In the body.

It is so much more. Than what they even know. And they admit scientists say, we know hardly anything about the system. We're just starting to learn about it. And what we know already. Is what I've been talking about here.

It is so fascinating to me. That. There is this connective tissue that forever people thought, eh, doesn't really do anything. Oh, it's in the way.

nicating and adapting. Every [: 00:27:00

So if you get something like a fascial restriction, let's say. You can see it on both sides of your body, even at one time. If you've had a. Fascia restriction on one shoulder and you try to lift both your arms. You might not be able to lift both.

Or how about knee or hip pain or something like that? You try.

Try to walk. Because you've got this. Hip. Fascia restriction. It affects how you walk. Then it affects your posture because you're trying to compensate for this.

Because you can't lift your one arm, your other arm has to do it in a weird way to compensate. So it's literally. Polling on all this netting. Or this rigging, like we said, the sailboat.

So the rigging over here is being pulled. Will it affect something over there?

ime or your shoulder or your [: 00:28:00

You get all this pain and discomfort. Lack of circulation. Poor communication in the autonomic nervous system. And then you go to the health provider, whoever you have, and you're in there for one area and they start working in another area and you say, wait a minute, what are you doing? And they say, don't worry.

I know what I'm doing. The area that you're complaining about is actually related to this other area. That's probably more likely your issue.

Happens all the time.

So then your ability. To flex and stretch. I believe. He has absolutely nothing to do with your muscles at all whatsoever. We always think that we need to like stretch our muscles. Well, muscle is actually nothing but connective tissue put into like these strands. So technically. It's the connected tissue.

inability to touch your toes [: 00:29:00

You can actually massage certain ligaments and tendons associated with how you can or can't do things like let's say you want to bend over and you can't really touch your toes. We'll then you can massage and work the tendons and ligaments in like, let's say, underneath your foot. You know, the planter facia. You can, you could work that with a ball. Or you can massage it. Then when you go to touch your toes, you can actually go further, may even touch them.

a, your body because they're [: 00:30:00

So work one area of the body. You're going to start seeing the benefits in other areas like under your foot, then your back pain isn't as much. Cause you can stretch better. Working areas of your back might relieve neck pain. Or working on your head. Could relieve things like ankle pain believer or not, because they're all the fascia is all connected from toe all the way up into your head.

Hm. Seems like Chinese medicine and new this like 5,000 years ago, they may have been onto something. Just probably didn't realize that the connected tissue has nerve endings in it. They probably didn't know that. You have in and around. Your fascia what's called a myofibroblast.

Blasts, whenever you hear that term are usually things that are building in the body. They're the good things. That's what you want.

ust start creating the wound [: 00:31:00

It also gives your fascia ability to stretch and then come back to its original shape. They're like the little workers that make fascia work.

So what kind of things can you do to help your fascia network? Well, first thing you do is move.

Move as much as you can. Stagnation is the worst thing for your body. They've actually measured fascia quantity after being sedentary for a certain length of time. And then when they looked at it, it was greatly compounded. And it had the wrong type of fascia. It had the nasty cut. Even after just a couple of weeks. So you can imagine what years would do.

It's. Too much for the body to be able to handle. You just basically become this network mesh of inflexible fascia.

want the good kind. Flexible [: 00:32:00

The fascia is clear. Like that fishing line. If you're less hydrated, it's more white ish because it's, uh, it's basically like. Protein think of something like whey protein or dairy. It kind of gets that look. And then if you want to hydrate yourself, especially your fascia, this is where the structured water comes into play that I had talked about in episode 19.

So if you've never heard of structured water or you really want to know the truth about water, Go listen, episode 19, super fun. Super interesting. And it is. Crucial. For good health. This is one of the reasons without good hydration. Your fascia becomes stiff. And you're going to feel terrible.

They say massage [: 00:33:00

Or if you have like a lot of scar tissue massages, really good. But basically the fascia is so strong. It's so stiff. , it can change so rapidly. It can change with you and.

It can change so much that massage has to be something that's done. All the time repetitively. Every day to really get the good benefits. But if you're in relatively good condition, then it can definitely help you. Even if you go once a week. The other way that people are trying to say that they can work on fascia.

Is this. Foam rolling.

If you're going to use it for your it band, for those of you who know what I'm talking about, you gotta be careful. Because. Well, you can make it worse.

Done in properly, you can actually damage blood vessels and nerve endings super easily.

You can only do it on [: 00:34:00

Then you will. Change your fascia, but you can't quote, break it up. It doesn't work that way. It's not like ice where you can keep smashing ice and break it into smaller pieces. That's not what it is. Foam rolling does though it will increase oxygen saturation in the muscles and it can lower some inflammation in the area, but this is because of the circulation. And. The nerve. Conduction you get from rubbing that area.[00:35:00]

So, if it makes you feel better, Use it just be careful. You don't want to hurt yourself. Usually when you're feeling better from foam rolling. It's just because you've disconnected your nervous system from that area. So you feel better.

It does way more. For professional athletes than. For regular people like us. Now exercise will help you grow fascia in the right way. That will promote slow or fast Twitch muscles.

For example. Plyometrics training. One of my favorite.

For losing body fat. .

You can do. Hopping. Rebounding. A real trampoline, you know, the big ones. You can jump rope, sprinting. Or HIIT training. If you don't know what that is, talk to somebody.

ining, which is like, You're [: 00:36:00

You stop halfway. Hold it. Or you're doing a bench press you push halfway up. Hold it. You're doing a pushup on the floor or a sit up. You want to hold it midstream and just concentrate on that muscle. Just firing like crazy for as long as it can, till you go. I can't hold it anymore. Then you let go. By the way. Gymnast's.

Do so much static training.

They build all this muscle. And yet their muscles grow like this because they're using so much static training. And then when they're doing the plyometrics. By jumping and flipping and doing these kinds of things or sprinting. They create fast-twitch so they end up with slow Twitch and fast Twitch muscle. Super strong, super flexible, very, very powerful.

you can do as Yoda training. [: 00:37:00

Yes. I said Yoda.

Then the other one is, uh, how about Pilates? You know how difficult plot is is if you've ever tried it. Wow. That will. Definitely make you feel bad, fascia. As it's trying to change. And of course yoga. That's the easier form of Pilates.

One of the easiest ways you can do to increase your good fascia is also through proper nutrition. Y because the more you move. You're going to need stuff to build. It's got to add to it.

In order to keep up with all this new growth. This changing and adapting to your. Exercise movement, whatever it is you're doing.

Best way. Meat.

Why meet. Well, Because it's the best protein source that you can get. Why, why would you say that Erik?

The main aspect about eating. Animal foods. Is,

They are sulfuric foods. Basically.

They've taken [: 00:38:00

Super foods. Eggs as an example. Seafood and fish super loaded with sulfur. Organ meats, dairy. Beef. Of course the ruminant animals, lamb, venison. Bison a goat. The other one that's really high in sulfur is actually wild birds, like pheasant, these kinds of things. Chicken is pretty good.

attached to it. So it's. Low [: 00:39:00

Let me have vitamin C. Which creates collagen and the different types. You may have heard these, but the fascia is made up of collagen as well as other things, but it's, it's these collagen types. You've heard college in 1, 2, 3, 4, and five. Vitamin C makes all of them.

ch vitamin C is in an animal [: 00:40:00

So if you're going to buy a bottle of it and make sure it's got copper, that doesn't have copper in it, you need to buy a bottle of copper to. You're always going to see copper at super low amounts and zinc at usually, you know, 25 to 50 60 milligram.

Make sure that you're getting a 15 or 10 to one ratio in order to make that zinc actually bioactive.

on. It is totally incredible [: 00:41:00

What's going on. It's. Crazy. Cool. Totally mind blowing. I looks like. Alien stuff.

All right. Take care of yourselves.