With a world Cricket tourney coming to Long Island soon, with America’s game underway on countless baseball diamonds, and with pickleball gaining in popularity, why not chat about having a ball or balls?

If your devoured KABOOMER to work on your healthspan, you may recall my writings about Self Myofascial Release or SMR.

Fascinating Fascia

Before we highlight the wonders of rolling or pressing a ball on a body trigger point or region, let’s reflect on what fascia are and why we use SMR to get you ready to play ball.

Think of Fascia as thin, matrixed saran wraps around each of your muscle groups (plus each of your joints and organs).

When all is well, your fascia stretch and smooth bodily motion is supported. If and when fascia get thicker, adhesive or “sticky”, then all is not well.

Considering a prominent fascia on the outer or distal part of each upper leg – you can readily see why “tight” or inflamed IT Bands are commonplace. Have you experienced an IT Band Syndrome? Our very credible Down Under experts at the feetpeople share useful awareness and remediation techniques for this common type of fasciitis …

Shifting from a specific symptom to the general … the Cleveland Clinic advises that your spunky, liquified hyaluronic collagen layers or “wraps” can lead to these observed symptoms of “tight” fascia:

• Tenderness or sensitivity
• Pain when pressure is applied to a trigger point
• Referred pain
• Aching, burning, stinging, or stabbing pain
• Reduced range of motion
• Weakness in the affected muscle.

Oy, veh. You’ve been there, and experiences that at some point, right?

Inflammation in a fascia region is medically called fasciitis. Think of plantar fasciitis (PF) as one of the more painful and enduring inflammations. Avoidance is far superior than mitigating PF – I share from my 9-month experiences!

That is correctomundo, repair cycles for fasciitis can last weeks to months :(, due in part to their lower blood supplies than embedded in other vital tissues.

Factoid

Your and my Fascia, particularly those close to our epidermis, have many, many nociceptors (i.e. sensory nerve endings). In fact, these fascia have the second-highest number of nerve endings per area – after our skin.

Our fascial linings are integral to experienced pains after surgery to musculoskeletal injuries from sports, exercise, or aging processes.

Bottom Lines

Up to 30% of people with musculoskeletal pain may have fascial involvement in those discomforts, or fascia may be the root cause.

So… staying Strong to Save means knowing your body’s Fascia. Your healthspan depends on your awareness and treatment of saran wrap stickiness. Simple yet admittedly hard techniques like self-myofascial release (SMR), proper hydration and nutrition, calculated static and dynamic stretching, situational R I C E, or careful therapy gunning may help reduce fasciitis and promote proper muscle functions.

Take note that very tender or acute triggers points in your fascia should be treted gently. Aggressive remediations may only increase your discomfort.

Yes, have a hard ball – like a cricket ball, lacrosse ball, or baseball to gently roll areas – like your layered upper back muscles, Ilio-tibial bands, and gluteals. I keep varied sizes of balls and roller handy to tailor my SMR rolls to the site of my exercise-induced fasciitis. The Mayo Clinic offers a very good tutorial about this common condition for athletes called “exertional compartment syndrome.”

• As a personal point, I always bring a ball on airplane flights, and keep one on my car seat to work my LPHC fascia.

Please have a Ball like I do to condition your under-appreciated wraps!

I am “here” to help you on your wellness journey. Reach out to me – Koach Dave- via email dave@strongtosave.com, or call/text me @ +1 858.925.3895.