The Hydration Piece

Let’s hop back to the architecture of our fascia again. Not only does our fascia have this suspended tensegrity architecture, it also has a liquid quality too.

While it’s difficult for us to understand how a support structure could be a fluid structure- because we’re not exactly making hi-rise buildings out of Jell-O- it’s true. Juicy fascia is happy fascia.

The best analogy I can give is of a sponge. When a sponge dries out it becomes brittle and hard. It can easily be broken with only a little force because of how crispy it is. However, when a sponge is wet and well hydrated it gets springy and resilient. You can crush it into a little ball and it bounces back. You can wring it and twist it, but

it is very difficult to break.

Once we understand that we’re like that on the inside, keeping our fascia hydrated takes on more importance. Our mobility, integrity, and resilience are determined in large part by how well hydrated our fascia is.

In fact, what we call “stretching a muscle” is actually the fibers of the connective tissue (collagen) gliding along one another on the mucous-y proteins called glycosaminoglycans (GAGs for short) which, depending on their chemistry, can glue layers together when water is absent, or allow them to skate and slide slide on one another when hydrated. (Grinnell 2008 and Guimberteau 2005)

This is one of the reasons that many injuries are fascial. If we get “dried out” we are more brittle and are at much greater risk for erosion, a tear, or a rupture.

So drink more water right? Well, yes and no. Staying hydrated via drinking continues to be important, but if you have dehydrated fascia it’s more like you have these little kinks in your “hoses”, the microvacuoles, which allow all of the subtle movements of the body [Guimberteau 2005]. When there are metaphorical kinks in the microvacuoles, the water you drink can’t actually reach the dehydrated tissue and gets urinated away, never

having reached the crispy tissue.

To be able to get the fluid to all of your important nooks and crannies you need to get better irrigated (Meert 2006). And to do that, you’ve got to get work on your soft tissue to untangle those glue-y bits. Again, working with a good manual and/or movement therapist is helpful for this.

*This chapter is an excerpt from the PDF Why Fascia Matters. You can download it in its entirety for free on the home page of Emerald City Rolfing.