Damage to the fascia | Fascias

Damage to the fascia

  • Constant sitting, one-sided, recurring movement habits or lack of movement
  • Excessive demands and strength effects on the connective tissue in everyday life or at work, or one-sided, excessive training loads Strains in sports, job-related recurring movement sequences
  • Injuries, operations, inflammation
  • Reaction of connective tissue to stress messengers – hardening of the tissue by cortisol release during emotional stress

Quote Dr. Robert Schleip, Fascia researcher : Fasciae live from movement, who does not move – sticks! Our everyday life is characterized more by lack of movement than by movement. Constant sitting or standing, immobilization after injury or inflammation change the sliding behavior of the connective tissue.

Years of unhealthy nutrition have an additional negative effect on the connective tissue of the fascia. The fasciae, like the muscles, require training for certain loads. This keeps the connective tissue and consequently the muscles and joints flexible, and extreme loads are withstood without damage, provided the other structures are intact.

The healthier and more slippery the connective tissue in the back is, the lower the pressure load on the small vertebral joints and on the intervertebral discs. The connective tissue reacts to lack of movement by solidifying through felting, the individual fibers are no longer arranged in an orderly fashion like a scissor grid (like shrunken wool). The gluing inhibits the exchange of substances taking place in the fascia, movements become painful and restrict.

So-called bad crosslinks are formed, which are movement-restricting crossbridges between the connective tissue fibers. Posture and muscular work suffer, the affected persons feel a general stiffness of the body (“as if everything is too short!”) .

The formation of crosslinks increases with age. As long as the body maintains the rigidity of movement, the problem is only slightly noticeable. However, if the body tries to leave the accustomed relieving posture, the movement restriction and pain quickly become apparent.

By automatically avoiding painful movements, the body tries to prevent further pain signals from being released. In this way, a vicious circle is set in motion, as the avoidance strategies trigger uneconomical movement sequences with the consequence of further functional restrictions and pain. Movement inhibits pain, lack of movement intensifies pain!

Everyday professional and sporting demands should not exceed the resilience of the connective tissue, whereby the tolerance differs individually for each person, depending on constitution and training. Constant overloading or constant, one-sided strain or overstretching due to constantly unchanging, one-sided sitting postures lead to mini injuries – micro-traumas – of the connective tissue as soon as a sudden uncontrolled movement stretches the shortened and damaged fascia and stimulates the pain-inducing nerve endings. The mini-injuries continue to add up and in the long run lead to pain signals.

Before the injuries have healed and the fibrous structure is reattached, further microtraumas occur. As a result, inflammatory reactions are triggered, which lead to an increase in tension in the connective tissue and muscles, which in turn trigger new injuries. The damaged fascia shortens, scars, thickens and loses its ability to slide.

Deeper tissue injuries, inflammations or operations result in scar tissue because the organism is not able to renew the injured tissue in the same condition as before the injury. In particular, scar growths and scar bulges are caused by a reactive overproduction of connective tissue. Typical characteristics of scar tissue are low elasticity and functional impairment, especially if the scar lies over frequently moved joints and is therefore exposed to high tensile stress.

Adhesive and poorly elastic scar tissue often results not only in local movement restrictions and pain, but also in functional restrictions that can affect the body as a whole. Unhealthy, persistent psychological stress triggers increased cortisol release (precursor of cortisone) into the tissue. Permanently excessive cortisol secretion leads to contraction and cramping of the connective tissue.

These hardenings (fibrosis) in the connective tissue are caused by excessive increase of collagen fibers, tendons, ligaments, joint cartilage and intervertebral discs degenerate.Tissue felting leads to a restriction of the metabolism, the permeability for nutrients and the removal of metabolic toxins is disturbed. The muscles that depend on the metabolism of the connective tissue are also damaged and muscle mass is reduced. Due to the high nervous density in the fascial network, experiences that have left their traces in the nerve cells of the connective tissue and in the brain through the release of certain messenger substances are preserved as in a memory memory store. Emotional trauma in childhood or adolescence can be partly responsible for pain in the muscles or connective tissue that occurs later, since our body falls back on the old pain patterns, provided that they are not erased by early and consistent treatment. The tissue does not forget.