If you’re feeling any aches, stiffness, or tension in your body, chances are your fascia is involved. 

This body-wide system of connective tissue is responsible for more than just protecting and supporting your muscles and organs. It even surrounds and penetrates your joints, nerves, and blood vessels. It’s implicated in many issues that can affect your health and athletic performance.

So if you want to improve your quality of life, it’s crucial to address your fascia’s health—a key component of which is elasticity. In this blog, I’ll explain the concept of fascial elasticity, its importance, and how you can train right at home to restore it. 

What is Fascial Elasticity?

Elasticity refers to the fascia’s inherent ability to stretch and rebound back to its original shape. What gives the fascia this characteristic is its elastin, one of the many proteins that make up the fascia’s extracellular matrix. 

Both too much or too little elastin can cause fascial dysfunction. However, It’s important to note that fascial elasticity depends on the fascia type and function. 

For example, superficial fascia contains more elastin fibers, making it naturally more elastic.

That’s because one of its main functions is to anchor the skin onto underlying tissues. Meanwhile, the deep fascia, which surrounds bones, muscles, nerves, and blood vessels, is more fibrous and less pliable.

How Does Fascial Elasticity Affect Your Athletic Performance?

Given how widespread the fascia is, its elasticity plays a crucial role in how well your body moves.

Its elasticity allows the fascia to function as an energy store. When the fascia lengthens, it absorbs and stores potential energy. This energy is released when the fascia rebounds, assisting the force production of muscles and improving efficiency. 

Fascial elasticity also facilitates the efficient transfer of load from one part of your body to another. That’s because the fascia exists as one interconnected system from your feet to your head. Let’s take for example the action of pitching a ball. When the fascia is healthy, force from the foot is able to efficiently travel up the leg, through the torso, and to the hands.

If your fascia does not have the right elasticity, it won’t rebound and give you that “catapult” effect. You would also leak the force that you produce, requiring your muscles to work harder than they need to.

Reduced tension in the fascia also hampers the body’s ability to sense its position and movement. That’s because the fascia is home to thousands of proprioceptors, the sensory nerve endings responsible for telling your brain where your body is in space. When your fascia has too much elasticity, you’re likely to have poor coordination and motor control.

Even your balance is affected by too much fascial elasticity, especially for women, as the fascia is sensitive to changes in hormones such as estrogen. Researchers found that women’s plantar fascia became more lax during ovulation, resulting in reduction in balance. 

How Does Fascial Elasticity Affect Your Health?

Having excessive or reduced elasticity in your fascia can also greatly affect your overall well-being. 

When your fascia is too lax, you can develop hernias, the most common of which occur in the groin, abdomen, and surgical incisions. Since visceral organs are also surrounded by fascia, organ prolapse may happen as a result of fascial laxity. 

In the worst case scenario, widespread fascial laxity can also result in systemic problems. Because the fascia is heavily innervated by the autonomic nervous system, dysfunction can lead to issues with heart rate regulation, digestion, and temperature control. 

Chronic pain, fatigue, and gynecological problems are also common complaints of people with hypermobility, a disorder likely caused by impairment in collagen production in the fascia.

On the other hand, restrictions such as adhesions, inflammation or scar tissue in fascia cause a pull in the fascial system, which decreases fascial elasticity. These restrictions are responsible for movement dysfunction in muscles and joints, which can lead to postural faults, pain, and muscle imbalances. They typically manifest as runner’s knee, tennis elbow, and golfer’s elbow.

How Do You Restore Fascial Elasticity?

The good news is that the fascia is plastic and thereby capable of regaining its elasticity. Researchers have observed immediate fascial plasticity after manual Fascial Manipulation®. 

This soft tissue therapy applies deep friction on areas of fascial densification to help the fascia regain its elastic nature. The physical touch not only alters the mechanical properties of the fascia but also stimulates the sensory nerve endings abundant in the fascia, triggering changes in the autonomic nervous system and contributing to fascial health overall.

If you don’t have access to a Fascial Manipulation Practitioner near you, the great news is you can restore your fascial elasticity right at home with Rev6. I developed this exercise modality specifically to remodel the fascia to an optimal state.

Rev6 utilizes movement to load the fascia in the right way, and tactile and unstable equipment to stimulate the sensory nerve endings found in the fascia. After just one 40-minute class, participants of Rev6 classes report feeling springier and lighter. After 10 sessions, they observe less pain, more mobility, and improved coordination—only some of the profound and lasting effects of healthier fascia.

Reap the benefits of an elastic fascia yourself by trying Rev6 today! You can get started for free with our 7-day trial here.

Sources:

Bond, M. M., Lloyd, R., Braun, R. A., & Eldridge, J. A. (2019). Measurement of Strength Gains Using a Fascial System Exercise Program. International Journal of Exercise Science, 12(1), 825–838. https://doi.org/10.70252/rwyl5698

Colonna, S., & Casacci, F. (2024). Myofascial System and Physical Exercise: A Narrative Review on Stretching (Part I). Cureus, 16(12). https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.75077

Findley, T., Chaudhry, H., & Dhar, S. (2015). Transmission of muscle force to fascia during exercise. Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies, 19(1), 119–123. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbmt.2014.08.010

George, T., & De Jesus, O. (2022). Physiology, Fascia. PubMed; StatPearls Publishing. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK568725/

Petrofsky, J., & Lee, H. (2015). Greater Reduction of Balance as a Result of Increased Plantar Fascia Elasticity at Ovulation during the Menstrual Cycle. The Tohoku Journal of Experimental Medicine, 237(3), 219–226. https://doi.org/10.1620/tjem.237.219Stecco, A., Stern, R., Fantoni, I., De Caro, R., & Stecco, C. (2016). Fascial Disorders: Implications for Treatment. PM&R, 8(2), 161–168. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pmrj.2015.06.006