Fascia was traditionally thought of in western medicine as being a passive structure, however, studies have found that fascia helps to reduce friction of muscular force and creates a moveable ‘wrapping’ for nerves and blood vessels as they pass through other structures. Fascia is also highly innervated, meaning it has lots of nerve endings in it mainly for sensory nerves, telling the brain how the body is moving, and responding to painful events. Fascia can respond to emotional input too.

The terms ‘massage’ and ‘myofascial release’ can be found to be used in an interchangeable way by some therapists. Many therapists claim to treat using myofascial release on Trigger Points, or “knots”, and will use oil/lubricant to do so through their treatments, however, true integrated myofascial release should not use any oils or creams One of the characteristics of good myofascial release is applying sustained pressure to the body tissues without sliding, allowing the therapist to feel deeper into the tissues as they begin to change. As we discovered earlier, not all fascia is related to the muscles and that true myofascial release treats the entire fascial system. These sustained techniques offer body wide change and tissue reorganisation as well as offer a platform for emotional release. As a cautionary note: Myofascia is a different structure from muscles. Muscles can respond well to firm, deep localised pressure but it’s worth bearing in mind that excessive and aggressive deep therapy work from an unskilled therapist or the use of therapy tools by an individual into tissues may potentially create more restriction from scarring and inflammation and damage the more fragile tissues.