Fascia is found all through the body.  Fascia can range from being gelatinous between your organs to a strong fibrous coating surrounding muscles.  Fascia types that are focussed on in a Fascial Manipulation treatment include: 

Superficial Fascia – A strong and fibrous layer that lays directly under the skin.  Consider it similar to a whole body onesie! 

Aponeurotic Fascia – Found as a layer between the muscles and superficial fascia that is full of receptors that can detect pain, movement and tension.  It is located in the arms and legs and joins onto the layers of muscles in the trunk.  The tension provided by this layer allows power from the muscles to complete effective, complex, full body movements (such as a tennis serve or running).  It also is assists with co-ordination of fine movements that feedback from the receptors to the brain. 

Deep fascia – This layer of fascia is firmly attached to the muscles.  It allows the power created by muscle contraction to be directed in the right direction. 

Visceral or organ fascia – By influencing the tension of the trunk fascia, this will in turn affect the tension of the ligaments holding the fascia that wraps organs and blood vessels in place.  If there is an imbalance in these tensions it may affect how effective the organ works. 

Research is showing that pain doesn’t always come just from muscles.  It can also come from fascia or the skin.  Fascia has many pain receptors in it that can, if activated, report pain.  An interesting study by Schilder and team in 2014, published in the Pain Journal, found that by specifically irritating the skin, fascia and muscles different types of pain were felt.  Skin and fascia when affected had the worst feelings of pain whereas muscles were mild producers of pain. 

Fascial manipulation restores sliding and gliding between different layers of fascia to improve tension and quality of movement in all parts of the body. 

Fascia covers our muscles, blood vessels, nerves, organs and bones, so treatment of it can be effective in both recent or old pains.  By resolving the imbalances in your system, we can treat sports injuries, pelvic pain, headaches, neck pain, back pain and sciatica, cramps, nerve pain to name a few!  Clients with long standing pain or complex and multiple injuries benefit from Fascial Manipulation as we are looking at influences from all parts of the body, not just where you feel pain.

Yes!  In assessments, we consider all systems in the body.  Often, when we have had pain for a long time, other systems become involved.  Pain could start in your musculoskeletal system but then compensate into your skin, respiratory, urinary, digestive, endocrine (hormonal) or cardiorespiratory systems.  By working with these systems, we are able to fully address all causes of pain. 

Conditions that can be influenced include: 

Skin: dry skin, numbness, stiffness, odema 

Respiratory: coughs, regular throat and lung infections, dysfunctional breathing patterns 

Urinary: infections, urinary frequency, recurrent kidney stones 

Digestive: constipation, reflux, IBS symptoms

Endocrine: dysmenorrhea, period pain, thyroid issues 

Cardiorespiratory: leg cramps, cold hands/feet, feelings of tightness around chest 

 These benefits are then used to help you regain your function and exercise capabilities, from which we then have a more physiotherapy based approach to get you strong and moving again.

This will depend on different factors pertaining to your unique history. 

Some people can be ‘cured’ in 2 sessions and will not need more treatment. This often occurs in those with recent injuries. 

Complex clients will need more treatment sessions, however should remain much improved for months, if not years. 

As a physiotherapist, I believe that it is important to combine hands on work to improve pain and stiffness from your body while promoting stretching, movement and strength work. I find that by utilising Fascial Manipulation first, it enables muscles to be strengthened more effectively and clients find it easier to engage with exercises when they are feeling less pain and increased ease of movement. We will work on self-management strategies throughout the whole of our journey.