Train Your Fascia, Tone Your Body (eBook)

The Successful Method to Form Firm Connective Tissue

Divo Mueller, Karin Hertzer (Autoren)

eBook Download: EPUB

2017 | 1. Auflage
182 Seiten
Meyer & Meyer (Verlag)
978-1-78255-459-2 (ISBN)

Infos

Fascia is a building network in our body that gives us support, structure, and form. Whether a thigh is firm and beautifully shaped or like jelly basically depends on the tone of the fibrous connective tissue-the fascia. Therefore, we must train and firm the fascia in addition to strengthening the muscles. Only then will we have defined muscles, a well-toned body contour, and a slender shape. In collaboration with renowned fascia researcher, Robert Schleip, PhD, Divo Mueller has developed a new training that specifically tones connective tissue. Applying the power principles presented in this book-sense, bounce, tone, and nourish-you can reduce cellulite and eliminate bat wings and a flabby bottom. Using the illustrated and detailed full-body workouts presented will tone the seven important fascial chains. This innovative training approach will especially benefit those with weak and flabby connective tissue. Additionally, physiotherapists, Pilates instructors, movement trainers, and fitness coaches can easily adapt these power principles as a part of their training programs.

Divo Müller is a health practitioner and body therapist. She is known internationally as a pioneer of modern movement programs. Together with Robert Schleip, PhD, a renowned researcher of fascia, and an international team of sport scientists, she has developed the successful training program Fascial Fitness. She regularly gives lectures and workshops and is a teacher in her own studio in Munich, Germany. Karin Hertzer is a health journalist, PR consultant, and author. She has been engaged in several books and a number of publications, has successfully run the PR for the Fascial Fitness Association and closely works together with Divo Mueller and Robert Schleip, PhD.

Textauszug

2 Ingenious
Tissue Architecture

Studies show that collagen tissue in young people as well as well-trained myofascial tissues often have a lattice-like structure. This applies specifically to tissue that is stretched in different directions on a daily basis. Ideally the muscle is not only stretch loaded in length like a tendon, but also widthwise, which is the case when the muscle fibers contract, creating bulky belly muscle. The lattice-like architecture of the fibers handles these different demands ingeniously. The following illustration shows how these structures change in the course of our lives if we don’t get enough exercise.

If you don’t move, you get rusty. With lack of exercise, the fascia loses its lattice-like alignment, sprawls in every direction, and literally becomes matted. In addition, the wavy microstructure of individual collagen fibers is lost and with it the springy, elastic tension (image on the right).

Connective tissue: the movement organ

“You have got to move!” This demand applies particularly to the fascia. This apt assertion comes from the renowned sports physician and doctor for the German national soccer team, Dr. Müller-Wohlfahrt, who some years ago published a book with that title on the athletic trainability of connective tissue.

When connective tissue is young and elastic, the microstructure of the individual collagen fibers is clearly corrugated. Scientists assume that this cunning construction plan is an essential basis for the elastic storage capacity of well-trained collagen. This phenomenal ability to store kinetic energy short term and then vigorously release it enables happy skipping, bouncing, or an efficient running performance.

As it ages, but most of all from lack of exercise, the tissue loses its lattice-like macro- and wave-like microstructure. The collagen fibers no longer react to tensile stress like an elastic spring, but rather more like a brittle rope. The fibers sprawl wildly in every direction, form lots of crosslinks, and get matted. Everyday movements become awkward and labored. We are no longer able to bend over as easily to, for instance, tie our shoes or we lose that springy tension when we climb stairs. This is caused not only by the weak, shortened muscles but more especially by the fascia fibers that have become brittle.

A healthy fascia is juicy. The youthfulness and slipperiness of collagen tissue is largely determined by the dynamics of the liquid matrix.

Myofibroblasts: Collagen Tissue Architects

Five questions to Robert Schleip, PhD

A healthy body immediately reacts to injuries to the outside of the skin or to the inside that are caused by an accident or an operation. The local tissue sends signals as quickly as possible to trigger multiple cell reactions one-by-one with the goal of closing the wound with a scar.

1.    Which cells are particularly active during the healing process?

Schleip, PhD: “They are the myofibroblasts that we have done quite a bit of research on at Ulm University. I call them supermen because they are four times as strong and produce much more collagen than the ordinary fibroblasts from which they originated.”

2.    What is the function of fibroblasts?

Schleip, PhD: “Fibroblasts are ordinary jack-of-all-trades cells in the connective tissue. For instance, they produce collagen, but they also eat it when it gets old. They perform this task with most of the other components of the matrix that surrounds them.”

3.    And what happens with a fresh wound?

Schleip, PhD: “Many fibroblasts transform themselves within a few days after an injury. Previously they functioned like Clark Kent, whom we know as the ordinary guy from comics and movies, and who just goes about his usual job.

But when an injury causes the fibroblasts to enter a certain biochemical and mechanical environment they, within a few hours to a few days, develop into particularly active myofibroblasts and, much like Clark Kent, suddenly turn into Superman.”

4.    During the initial phase of an injury, the myofibroblasts produce particularly more collagen, which speeds up the healing process and greatly contracts the surrounding fiber network in order to close the wound. What happens during the second phase?

Schleip, PhD: “A healthy, normal myofibroblast continues to behave like a superman only when it makes sense to do so. So if he has closed the wound and the tissue is strong enough to withstand stresses and strains, he commits a kind of honorable suicide and disappears. Doctors refer to this type of seppuku as apoptosis.”

5.    Once a wound has healed and their work is done, the myofibroblasts disappear. But as we know from Superman, myofibroblasts also have weaknesses. So why is it that they can cause problems during the second phase of wound repair?

Schleip, PhD: “One disadvantage of myofibroblasts is that while they can produce lots of collagen, they are less good at removing their own waste later on. This results in a thickening of the tissue at the edge of the wound, called fibrosis. It is the remaining, visible scar. This happens particularly with myofibroblasts that, for whatever reason, refuse to make way for other more useful tissue elements via apoptosis after their work is done.”

*Fibrosis*

The term fibrosis refers to oathological connective tissue growths. They can develop as part of wound repair or for other reasons, such as overloading, which is often the case with professional athletes. But the most common cause of fibrosis, meaning the loss of the orderly lattice-like architecture of the fibers, is the underloading of tissue from a pervasive lack of movement and exercise. Characteristics are chaotic proliferation of fibers, matting, and adherance to other structures. In short, the fascia becomes brittle.

If you don’t move, you get sticky

Nature designed the human body so the dense membranous fascia sheets are connected via loose connective tissue. You can visualize these natural adhesions as small spider webs that form loose connective tissue, filling the spaces between neighboring dense fascia layers. They facilitate smooth movements but don't allow complete free gliding.

Fluffy fibers as shown in the image on the left, are a sign of healthy collagen. By contrast, the fibers on the right are brittle, frequently caused by lack of exercise.

But what happens when the fascia is too closely connected to the muscle sheaths beneath (i.e., adhering to them)? Researchers have been able to show in several studies that in many people with chronic back pain the thoracolumbar fascia adheres much too closely to the underlying muscle sheath. They now speculate that lots of chronic soft tissue pain, particularly in the back, is linked to poorly gliding flat fascia.

Robert Schleip, PhD, estimates that “80 percent of all back operations are unnecessary.” The fascia researcher therefore recommends getting a second opinion from another physician or expert to also have the connective tissue more closely examined via ultrasound. If the fascia is locally thickened and sticky, Schleip recommends targeted and regular fascia training. There is a good chance that you will be able to move pain-free again after a few weeks or months.

Stress Promotes Hardening of the Fascia

The daily madness we usually refer to as stress, and which is accompanied by constant agitation and a lack of regeneration and balance in the autonomic nervous system, also affects the fascia network. The immediacy with which the nervous system and stress affect the fascia surprised even the researchers.

Under the influence of specific transmitters, the fibroblasts increase their activity, producing more collagen fibers and wiring the fibers particularly tight together. The stress-sensitive trapezoid muscle in the upper shoulder area then feels like it has been washed and shrunken in hot water. We call this tension; on the collagen level it is called a contracture. The problem is that this hardening persists even after the connective tissue cells have stopped their overzealous activity. Releasing the contracture can then require special measures to unmat the collagen over time and let it become smooth again. The expert hands of a myofascial therapist, working with a foam roller, and melting stretches are helpful here.

The Two Sides of Fascial Viscoelasticity

Floppy or toned—is it all a question of time? Or does our genetic predisposition play a role here? It is a valid question because we carry with us a basic genetic collagen structure, and this genetic component determines the appearance of cellulite, among other things (see page 151).

Our genes help to determine whether we tend toward a flexible, elastic, or a rather sturdy but stiff...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 1.12.2017
• Verlagsort: Aachen
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Sport ► Fitness / Aerobic / Bodybuilding
• Schlagworte: Blackroll • body toning • Cellulite • Connective Tissue • exercise • fascial training • firm body shape • fitness coach • foam roller • full-body workout • Guide • movement trainer • physiotherapist • Pilates coach • Robert Schleip • yoga coach
• ISBN-10: 1-78255-459-9 / 1782554599
• ISBN-13: 978-1-78255-459-2 / 9781782554592