By Eric Winder, DC 

Coordination is one of the major lynchpins to optimal health and quality of life, although people rarely give much thought to it. Even if you are not a ballerina or a star athlete, you still are highly coordinated as a human being. Just the acts of getting out of bed, walking around or brushing your teeth require an extraordinary level of coordinated contraction, tension and relaxation of the muscles that move your bones and joints.   

This muscle orchestration is not just about movement. The muscles need to maintain proper joint alignment and stability as you move in order to protect against injury. Even the simplest movements require finely-tuned control. However, what happens when there is a glitch in this control system?  

Wrench in the Works 

Even a small problem with stability or alignment while moving can result in injury and pain over time. The source of many such problems can be found in a key element of coordination––the tissue called fascia. Embedded in this fibrous connective tissue are millions of nerve endings for position sense.  

This position-sense information comes from the fascia of the muscles, bones, joints and other tissues of the body. If the information coming from fascia is confused, painful problems can result. In other words, a restriction or distortion in the fascia can create a “wrench in the works.” 

For example, I recently treated an active, athletic young woman with shoulder pain. More than two years prior, she had torn her rotator cuff, but it healed and was pain-free until about one month before she came into my office. An exam showed restrictions in the fascia at three points around her shoulder joint, as well as between her shoulder blade and spine.  

She also showed weakness in two important stabilizing muscles of the shoulder, but these immediately strengthened upon treatment of the fascia restrictions. As a result, reaching above her head or behind her back became much easier and less painful, and with further treatment, she was entirely pain-free.  

Our Structural Fabric 

Fascia can be thought of as a fabric covering and connecting all tissues. As it provides constant feedback to the nervous system about the position and motion of all of the parts of the body, fascia makes coordinated movement possible.  

However, if there is restriction and distortion in this “structural fabric,” then problems in coordination can result. If position-sense feedback is distorted or confused, then joint alignment and stability could suffer which can result in shoulder pain, knee arthritis, hip bursitis and many other painful issues.  

Restoring proper pliability and tension to restricted fascia can restore lost joint alignment and stability. This can help all kinds of pain in the body through gentle hands-on treatment. While there are multiple forms of myofascial therapy, treatment at our clinic focuses on finding the critical restrictions that disturb position-sense and cause pain.  

To ensure proper treatment success, we measure progress in muscle tone and strength, joint stability and alignment, range-of-motion and orthopedic testing. These tests usually show improvement immediately after fascia release therapy and offer evidence of a successful treatment that will bring pain relief. 

Our evening programs have moved online. You are invited to attend a Zoom webinar on Fascia and Pain on January 26, 6:30 p.m. You will learn in-depth about fascia, why it is important, and how fascia problems are involved with pain. Dr. Eric Winder will discuss case examples and hold a Q&A session following the presentation. Visit GentleBay.com to register.