What is fascia?

Fascia a term most common among sports person, mainly athlete. A term also very common in a Pro Chiropractic patient. a important term but also miss understood system in a body.  It is the framework for all connective tissue.Believe it or not, it is one continuous structure from head to toe without interruption.

Fascia is a loose to dense fibro-elastic connective tissue that is found throughout the body from the head, face, neck and trunk to the arms and legs. Superficial fascia is loose, fibro-elastic and fatty. Deep fascia is tough, compacted and irregularly woven fibro-elastic tissue. Two important properties of fascia are contractility and elasticity with the latter diminishing with age. The function of the fascia is to act as a restraining mechanism by enclosing muscles, improving joint stability and holding tendons in position. As a result of injury or chemical disruption, fascia may thicken, shorten, calcify or erode which will result in pain and stiffness.

Fascia is similar to ligaments and tendons in the structural components. They are all made up of fibrous connective tissue containing closely packed bundles of collagen. These collagen fibers are designated in a wavy pattern parallel to the direction of pull.

There are three different kinds of Fascia:

Superficial Fascia: Superficial fascia is actually a part of the skin. It is the lowermost layer of skin throughout most of the body and is responsible for creating the shape of the body. It stores water and fat, serves as a passageway for lymph fluid, blood vessels and nerves, and can act as protective padding to cushion and insulate.

Deep Fascia : Deep fascia is a layer of fibrous connective tissue that surrounds individual muscles and also separates muscle groups into compartments. Deep fascia is made primarily of elastin fibers which help determine the extensibility and resiliency of the tissue. It is primarily avascular which means it has no blood supply.

Visceral or Subserous : provides suspensory elements to organs in their cavities. Each organ is surrounded by two layers of fascia which are separated by a thin serous membrane. The outer layer of organ fascia is known as the parietal layer. The inner layer of organ fascia is called the visceral layer.