BodyWise

Fascia Giveth and Fascia Taketh Away With fascia, communication is a two-way street. Connectivity is great when things are working well, less so when they aren’t, such as when two previously independent and healthy tissues are locked together. Connectivity explains how a restriction in one part of the body can eventually drag down every other structure in the body with it. On the upside, it also allows manual therapists to follow fascial tensions to their source. If fascia can communicate the challenges of a single cell to every other cell in the body, imagine the consequences when the communication reaches the CNS. This is precisely what happened to Mary Ellen Clark, a seven-time national champion in the 10-meter platform dive and bronze medalist in the 1992 Summer Olympics. Ms. Clark had experienced vertigo occasionally throughout her career, but in 1995 it resurfaced with a vengeance while she was training for the ‘96 Games. Vertigo is bad enough on dry land. For a diver, it can be fatal. Mary Ellen tried herbs, acupuncture, physical therapy, chiropractic, and anti-seizure medications. She stopped drinking coffee and alcohol. Nothing worked. Doctors at the University of Miami Balance and Dizziness Center assumed that her vertigo stemmed from the tens of thousands of impacts between her head and the water from years of diving practice. They tried positional treatments and asked her to sleep in a sitting position for the first two nights after each treatment. Improvements were negligible. Unable to train, Ms. Clark sought the help of Dr. Upledger. Using his hands, Upledger found the source of the vertigo: her fascia was transmitting tension from old knee and ankle injuries through her pelvis and spine into the membranes surrounding her brain. After Upledger released those restrictions, Ms. Clark was able to resume diving full-time just months before the Games. Despite having missed nine months of training and many competitions, she won bronze again in ‘96, becoming the oldest medalist in Olympic diving history. Had Upledger not understood fascia, she probably would have missed those Games. Despite fascia’s connectivity, communication, water storage importance, and utility, the medical community largely ignores it. Fascia lacks glamor and is difficult to study. Most anatomy books ignore fascia, too, and for good reason: if medical illustrators showed even a fraction of the fascia, it would obscure the structures they were endeavoring to show. However, as many children have discovered, the packaging is often the best gift of all. This is also true with the body. The next chapter introduces subtle motions, something else that depends on normal fascial tension and hydration.