Fascia … Have you ever pulled apart a piece of red meat and seen that white sheer stuff that keeps expanding as you pull the meat apart until it just separates or breaks? That is fascia. (You’ll also see fat and tendons in that meat, but they are distinctly different from this fascia.)

In the living, breathing body, this fascia surrounds every muscle fiber, every muscle, every group of muscles, every organ, every group of organs and it creates different lines of pull throughout the entire body (Liptan, 2010). Most muscles cross just one joint, but plenty of muscles cross two joints. In the trunk, there are even some muscles that cross multiple joints.

However, this fascia connects the toes to the pelvis to the cranium (on the front AND the back side). It also connects the fingers to the shoulder blade to the cranium and the pelvis. Tom Myers does a fabulous job of identifying several lines of pull throughout the body in his book, Anatomy Trains. If you’re interested in learning more about fascia, this book is a must.

I will continue musing about fascia in the months to come …

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• Liptan, G. L. (2010). Fascia: A missing link in our understanding of the pathology of fibromyalgia. Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies, 14(1), 3–12. doi:10.1016/j.jbmt.2009.08.003
• Myers, T. W. (2009). Anatomy trains: Myofascial meridians for manual and movement therapists. Philadelphia, PA: Churchill Livingstone.