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Today Myofascial pain is recognised as one of the most common causes of musculoskeletal pain encountered in medical practice.
Fascia is important stuff. If you’ve ever wondered what stops a weightlifters muscles from bursting when they lift those hundreds of kilos or why your muscles form the shapes they do? It’s fascia. Fascia is a gel, so it can be liquid like jelly on the stove or hard like jelly forgotten for three weeks in the back of the fridge that you can’t get a knife into it.
As a skydiver, I had a chute not work once. I got it sorted but if I’d "bounced" and survived, it would have been because of my fascia, not my skeleton or muscles, plus maybe a fairly big bit of luck. Because it does so many jobs by learning to work with fascia instead of against it you can rehab faster, raise your efficiency dramatically, work longer for less effort or have more energy for fun things plus be less tired and avoid new injuries.
Stop Showering Yourself to a Standstill.
As we said earlier, fascia is a gel and gels have two interesting properties. The first is called “thixotropy,” which means that gels become more liquid when agitated or shaken, and then set when allowed to stand. When you “warm up” before you exercise, you shake the gel and through an “isothermal” (same temperature) process, the heat is dispersed and liquefies the fascia so all your muscles slide and move easily. It’s why it can be hard to stand back up after lunch, you “set while you sat”.
Property two - when you heat a gel, it goes liquid, so you can heat up your gel artificially by using something like a heat pack or a hot shower or spa. Many treatment plans that have no knowledge of fascia and how it works recommend this. We believe that’s a mistake!
How hot does it have to get before it will go liquid? If you’re already doing the hot shower thing, you already know, really bloody hot. Small problem - every time you sit still for about half-an-hour (fascia sets in under 20 minutes at normal body temperature), it’s a mission to get that hard set fascia moving again. Hmmm, load strain 2000psi and a breaking strain higher than steel, are you feeling tired and sore yet?
There is a way out of this cycle. Stop having hot showers. Simple, eh? If you turn up injured at our clinic, we insist you agree to follow this advice or we don’t even start treatment. Now let's go through the why not list. Got to have it hot to get clean after work - well, no, actually. Heat just opens the pores wider and lets the dirt further in and when the skin cools, it’s trapped underneath. Cold or warm is best for washing skin. Need it to warm up in the winter - get over it, you’re a creature and your body was never designed to be put in hot water. For showering, warm is OK, even pleasant warm - just not hot.
Chris Toal
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