What is Myofascial Release?

Hi all,

Last spring, one of you asked me a simple question about a class and it prompted me to a pretty fun and interesting answer. I imagined someone asking me the same type of question about Moving Mountain's approach to myofascial release, here's my answer... It's just one way among many to express it. Hopefully, it's interesting and maybe inspiring or thought-provoking for you... (PS: we have all three of our Myofascial Release courses on the calendar for this late winter and spring. You can take them in any order you like!)

Myofascial release, as we approach it, embraces the osteopathic principles of indirect and direct treatment and, applies them to the realm of the myofascia. What does that mean? I have been in pretty deep contemplation about what we are really doing with myofasical work since late summer. The book, Interface, Mechanisms of Spirit in Osteopathy, offered me some insight. And then Gil Hedley's lecture turned everything upside down.

One thing I have been considering is that there are multiple oscillating rhythms within the body and within specific tissues. I think the dance of indirect  (in simple terms, a compression) and direct (in simple terms, a stretch) techniques allows us to work with and within these rhythms and in this way we are able to both listen to the tissues and offer opportunities for release of tension and restriction.

Working with the myofascia gives us a distinct and practical orientation within the tissue realm. The myofascia orients us to the specific manifestation of connective tissue as it serves the movement and stabilizing properties of the musculature.

Why focus on this specifically? One reason is that it is readily accessible and, because it is so involved with how we move through the world, it is highly communicative.

Before I go further let's define the term myofascia. It is the fascia directly associated with the musculature. As such it has specific properties that are coherent with the ways muscle seeks to express itself. Flexible and stabilizing - both-and. We could also say that myofascia is the system comprised by the inter-relationship of muscle and fascia. It's important to note that we don't, anywhere find muscle existing without fascia and, we certainly do find fascial forms where muscle isn't. So, fascia is a much larger and more complex system, facilitating the movement of information throughout the body. It interacts with our motor system via the neuromuscular connections. 

Image from James Oschman's Energy Medicine in Therapeutics and Human Performance.

Everywhere muscles go we find fascia. And, actually, it might be more appropriate to reverse that and say wherever fascia (at least a certain type of fascia) goes we find muscle. Here I am borrowing a postulate principle from Jean Claude Giumberteau - as the human form is developing and cells are dividing and deciding who they are going to be when they grow up, they are doing this in specific milieu. This milieu is essentially the extracellular matrix (a form of connective tissue at the microscopic level). Giumberteau is proposing that the cells are receiving information from the milieu that determines how the cells express themselves.

Artwork: @katethesage; "Fascia" intaglio print

If the ancients and the modern-day philosophers of time and space (physicists) are correct, form follows energy. So, let's imagine that within the developing form there is a specific pattern unfolding that yearns for muscles so that it may express itself most fully. So, the body laid out pathways of connective tissue that desired muscles to become a full expression of potential - potential for movement, potential of form and, expression through form. The muscles developed according to this pathway, each taking shape specific to its terrain and purpose. 

An embryonic neuronal growth cone in development -- Does the developing nerve grow or does it extend itself based on the substrate?, video from Paul LeTourneau, PhD and U of MN Developmental Neuroscience Lab.

There is an intelligence within the fascial system about which our understanding is rapidly evolving. We can appeal to that intelligence without understanding it fully and maintain observational curiosity - that the body can reveal worlds of meaning if we know how to listen.

So, myofascial release is a way to listen to this readily accessible and highly expressive aspect of our fascial complexity. Myofascial release is also a means to learn these primary pathways that are an embodied wisdom of our form, how it has chosen to organize itself. As we approach this organized and interrelated landscape the specific pathways become a map for us that allows us to follow how the body moves energy. These fascial pathways, in a general sense, follow the meridians of Chinese medicine. One of the energies that can move along these pathways are expressions of pain or discomfort.

The myofascia responds to a specific type of sustained pressure and engagement of osteopathic principles. If these principles are applied within the framework of the major myofascial pathways and specific highly dynamic regions within the pathways much can be discovered and expressed by the body, and felt by the patient and the practitioner. There are three consciousnesses at play in treatment: the patient, their body consciousness and the practitioner (maybe four, if we include practitioner body consciousness). Engaging with the tissue in this way of meaningful dialogue opens new terrain of expression for the body and the patient.

Medicine is complex and pain can be beguiling and I certainly don't understand very much about the nuance of how pain manifests and expresses itself. But, with the right approach we can contact this beautiful system and allow it to express itself and, in that way, I have been so fortunate to witness people gain insight into their own circumstances and watch pain patterns change over time.

So, that's one way to answer the question, what is myofascial release. I'm sure there are so many more, each person that does practices is their own answer.

Come check it out with us the weekend of February 3-4 at Kwan Yin East. Information can be found here.

Stay tuned later in the week for an amazing pair of images of the throacolumbar fascia!

Best,
Michael