What is Fascia?
Our bodies are held together with an extensive connective tissue network that shapes, forms and protects our bodies. It holds our skeleton together, keeping organs, vessels, and muscles in place. Fascia is the toughest portion of this connective tissue network. Resembling an intricate spider web, it spreads throughout our bodies touching every cell from head to toe without interruption.
Trauma, inflammation, infection, injury, and posture can create a binding down of tissues or tension within the fascia -- often resulting in excessive pressure on multiple structures throughout the body including nerves, vessels, bones, and organs. This fascial straightjacket of pressure can cause pain, numbness, tingling, stiffness, and a general feeling of disorder.
Although a restricted fascial system can cause a multitude of discomforts and diseases, it is seldom diagnosed as the problem because standard testing such as X-rays, MRI, EMG, and CT scans cannot discern it.
JOHN F. BARNES
MYOFASCIAL RELEASE APPROACH
John F. Barnes is an internationally recognized physical therapist, lecturer, author, and the leading authority on Myofascial Release. Through more than 50 years of experience and creative thinking, Barnes has developed the most innovative, highly acclaimed, and effective whole-body approach to evaluate and treat pain and dysfunction in the body.
Myofascial Release treatment has grown in the therapy scene with an undisputed impact and is often referred to as the most effective form of healthcare therapy.
The JFBMFR approach uses gentle sustained pressure to areas of fascial restriction throughout the body for a time long enough to create a complete and lasting release of the tissues. The “release” requires gentle but firm pressure for at least five minutes. This essential “time element” separates JFBMFR from the old forms of myofascial release and other types of bodywork. This approach promotes a bioelectrical flow in the body, produces our own natural anti-inflammatory agent, and rehydrates at the cellular level. The result is relief from the crushing pressure of a restricted fascial system.
