How fascial training expanded my Pilates teaching
As Pilates practitioners, we spend our days trying to optimize our client’s movement and postural patterns. Have you been interested to add a ‘new’ perspective to your toolbox? A different way of thinking and understanding can open up new possibilities, new ways to support our clients, whilst giving us movement professionals additional tools and techniques as we deepen our knowledge about the body and movement. Understanding the fascial system is one such new perspective.
In this article let’s look at movement through the lens of fascia. By knowing the fascia system’s interconnectedness, in particularly for movement the myofascial connections, I believe we can enrich our understanding of how movement is orchestrated and how it can be optimised in its entirety.
The first time I experienced the great benefits of Pilates was at the Laban Centre, a dance school in London. It was here that I developed a strong interest in holistic movement and injury prevention.
I treasure the tools Pilates gave me, yet at times I felt limited in creating long-lasting postural and movement changes within clients and myself. It was like I was missing a piece of the puzzle to be able to understand why the changes that I was trying to evoke didn’t always stick.
I was first introduced to fascial training by Karin Gurtner, who is the developer of Slings Myofascial Training® (Slings). It was a memorable turning point in my life and career. Slings is a holistic, fascia-focussed movement concept that engages body and mind. With a broad selection of multidimensional and adaptable exercises, this integrative practice aims to enhance postural ease and movement freedom, while strengthening health and vitality.
The Slings education program by art of motion academy helped me to understand interconnected anatomy and how fascia can be trained intentionally, rather than accidentally. Being able to ‘see’ through the myofascial lens revolutionised how I understood and addressed postural and movement patterns in my clients and myself.
Once you become aware of the fascial connections you cannot unsee them and you cannot ignore their influential functions. Understanding how fascia influences every movement and postural pattern that we have, knowingly or not, helped to answer the ‘why’ I was looking for. As soon as I started considering the fascia’s architectural and functional behaviours and how to train them, I started to see long lasting change for my clients, and for me as a teacher.
Fascia is so fascinating, and it forms due to function. Meaning the way we move, stand, and even think forms our postural and movement patterns for better or for worse. Fascia is the collagenous tensile, force-transmitting, multidimensional, gliding and connecting network and every other system is embedded in it.
In the Slings concept, we focus on (re)training 12 innate fascial movement qualities.
Here are the 12 fascial movement qualities we think are worth training for at art of motion academy:
· Tensile Strength
· Muscle Collaboration
· Force Transmission
· Adaptability
· Multidimensionality
· Fluidity
· Glide
· Elasticity
· Plasticity
· Fascia Tone Regulation
· Kinaesthesia
It’s a simple equation; use them or lose them. Just because fascia innately has certain qualities it doesn’t mean you still have and or utilise them. The good news is you can retrain them and through fascia focused training maintain them for a lifetime. So, what does this mean for our clients (and ourselves)? If we don’t train for ‘Tensile Strength’ (one way to strengthen fascia is under load and tension) our dynamic stability, tissue resilience and joint longevity can be greatly compromised. To help clients maintain or regain the fascia’s plasticity quality, which allows structural shape changes in the fascial architecture, we need to first understand how we can specifically train it. Meaning we need to understand why and how fascia can change shape.
Fascia transmits force; this is a mode of mechanical communication. For example, changes in the foot are communicated along sequential myofascial (muscle and fascia) lines enhancing movement efficiency and supporting postural ease. However, if there are adhesions or the fascia has become gluey rather than being able to glide relative to its neighbouring structures (therefor transmitting force with ease), there will be excess force to a certain area which can lead to overloading, compression, and discomfort amongst other things.
An example of not ideal force transmission, that many of us have experienced first-hand and or observed in a client is an overloaded and potentially inflamed hamstring attachment point at the sit-bone or low back discomfort or compression due to a lack of force transmission or excess force being expressed at a certain area. Ideally in every step that we take force no longer gets sent from the bottom up, more specifically from the short toe flexors to the plantar fascia, to the achilles tendon, to the calf muscles, to the hamstrings, up via the sacrotuberous ligament, to the back extensors, and to the suboccipital muscles.
Fascia Training is useful to maintain joint and tissues multidimensionality by preventing joint degeneration and or loss of freedom of movement in all directions in the joint and tissue, we often call this aging, yet we could age with a lot more ability if we train for these qualities. Through training for adequate tensile strength, glide, force transmission and elasticity you are preventing tears in ligaments, tendons, overloading or compressing myofascial structures and joints whilst fostering tissue resilience, kinaesthesia, and somatic trust (also a bonus for aging). Fascia is our biggest sensory organ meaning training fascia intentionally will enhance how we perform movements with precision and ease as well as how you perceive movement and what is good for you to do more of and what to do less off. This is self-empowering for the client.
To allow you to understand how fascia training works, I have provided a supporting video to accompany this article. I have chosen two exercises where you can experience Slings Myofascial Training.
The training aims for each exercise are to enhance freedom of movement, multidimensional strength and glide in the hips and shoulders. We are focusing on just three of the twelve fascial movement qualities namely: glide, multidimensionality and tensile strength in the hips, shoulders, and trunk to support postural and functional ease and longevity.
As an onlooker, it might seem almost the same at first, yet the instructions, the felt sense and intentions differ. The intention of what system you are focusing on plays a really big role and of course the understanding of how we can re-train the innate fascial architecture and its functions.
Come and join me on the mat to find out more.