International Fascia Research Congress Research Articles

5th International Fascia Research Congress

5th International Fascia Research Congress

4th International Fascia Research Congress

4th International Fascia Research Congress

A Massage Therapist's Perspective on the Fascia Research Congresses

A Massage Therapist's Perspective on the Fascia Research Congresses

Fascia Research from a Clinician/Scientist's Perspective.

The upcoming Third International Fascia Research Congress will have much exciting information for the clinician, as well as for the clinical and basic science researcher. This paper provides a perspective from a clinician/scientist, including the fascial network of body-wide connections between and within individual cells, and sharing of loads between muscle and fascia. Basic studies of fibroblast cell shape show the impact of manual therapy, acupuncture, and yoga-like stretching at the cellular level. Advances in scientific equipment have made it possible to study a layer of hyaluronan fluid, which allows sliding between deep fascia and muscle. Collagen fibers within fascia affect both blood flow to muscles and lymphatic fluid flow.

International Journal of Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork (IJTMB): A Third-Year Retrospective Reflecting Google Analytics and Open Journal System Sources

International Journal of Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork (IJTMB): A Third-Year Retrospective Reflecting Google Analytics and Open Journal System Sources

Fascia research 2012: third international fascia research congress.

In October 2007, I opened the First International Fascia Research Congress by noting that the congress was the realization of a dream 30 years in the making. During the 1970s, I completed my residency training in physical medicine and rehabilitation, and the coursework and research training for my doctorate. Those studies taught me to fix muscles, bones, and nerves, and to train new movements and restore function in people with arthritis, stroke, spinal cord injury, amputations, and cerebral palsy (to list just a few). They also exposed me to the underlying principles of physiology, biochemistry, and psychology that guided the clinical treatments. But when it came to connective tissue, all I and my colleagues knew was that, when you heated a rat tail, you could stretch it. There was no other relevant research that I could find. At that moment, three decades ago, I started dreaming of a fascia research congress that would bring together widely separate research disciplines in the service of the clinician.

Release of Myofascial Pain with Deep Cross-Friction Named “Roptrotherapy”

This article is the expanded abstract of a workshop presented at the Second International Fascia Research Congress; October 27 – 30, 2009; Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Muscle Repositioning: Combining Subjective and Objective Feedbacks in the Teaching and Practice of a Reflex-Based Myofascial Release Technique

Muscle Repositioning (MR) is a new style of myofascial release that elicits involuntary motor reactions detectable by electromyography. This article describes the principal theoretical and practical concepts of MR, and summarizes a workshop presented October 31, 2009, after the Second International Fascia Research Congress, held at Vrije Universitiet, Amsterdam.The manual mechanical input of MR integrates the client's body segments into a block, which is evident as a result of the diagnostic manual oscillations the practitioner imparts to the client's body. Segmental integration is achieved when the client's body responds as a unit to the oscillatory assessment. It appears that manually sustaining the condition of segmental integration evokes involuntary muscle reactions, which reactions might correspond to mechanisms that maintain homeostasis, such as pandiculation. It might be that these reactions are part of the MR mechanism of action and underlie its clinically observed efficacy in the treatment of musculoskeletal disorders.For the practitioner and the client alike, segmental integration provides unique sensations. In teaching MR, these paired sensations can be used as kinesthetic feedback resources, because quality of touch can be guided by the client's reported sensations, which should match the practitioner's sensations. Another form of feedback with respect to quality of touch is the visually discernable degree of segmental integration. Finally, because the involuntary motor activity elicited by the MR touch can be objectively monitored through electromyography and possibly other instrumented measurements, the MR approach might yield objectivity, precision, and reproducibility-features seldom found in manual therapies.

Translational research queries, fascia research congress sequels, and beyond....

Translational research queries, fascia research congress sequels, and beyond....

The Fascial Manipulation Technique and Its Biomedical Model: A Guide to the Human Fascial System

This is the expanded abstract of a workshop presented at the Second International Fascia Research Congress; October 27 – 30, 2009; Amsterdam, Netherlands.

2nd International Fascia Research Congress in Amsterdam

550 Teilnehmer besuchten vom 27. bis 30. Oktober 2009 den 2. Fascia Research Congress. Von nahezu allen Kontinenten stromten Forscher und Kliniker an die Freie Universitat im Suden Amsterdams. Die hohe Anzahl und wilde Mischung von Vortragenden und Teilnehmern zeigte: Auf dem Gebiet der Faszienarbeit und –forschung ist etwas in Bewegung geraten. Ein 325–Seiten starker Kongress–Band mit Artikeln und Abstracts verdeutlichte dies und half zugleich bei der Navigation durch diese uberwaltigende Vielschichtigkeit der Beitrage.

Fascia Research II: Second International Fascia Research Congress

It is with pleasure that I introduce background materials to the Second International Fascia Research Congress, to be held October 26 – 30, 2009, at Vrije Universiteit (VU), Amsterdam, Netherlands. This conference is sponsored by the faculty of Movement Sciences of VU, a leading research university. The submitted abstracts are posted at the congress website, http://www.fasciacongress.org/2009. The key speakers are all new for 2009, although almost half the key presenters from 2007 will be returning with shorter presentations (Langevin, Solomonow, Mense, Standley, Bove, Huijing), and Guimberteau will have a new video presentation of fascia images obtained during human surgery. The conference proceedings book Fascia Research II includes full-text articles that form an important basis for the scientific study of fascia. Huijing is a muscle physiologist who has for many years been studying the connections between muscles and fascia. He has recently developed an interest in the clinical practice relating to fascia and has guided the selection of these papers; some of this information has not been widely published. Van der Wal presents his new findings on connective tissue architecture from his doctoral dissertation of 20 years ago (to appear in the next issue of International Journal of Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork). Other papers come from widely disparate scientific disciplines. Purslow, one of the key speakers and an author of one of the papers in the congress proceedings book, is a food scientist whose connective tissue studies are sometimes seen by other disciplines. The organizers of the first Fascia Research Congress (Boston 2007) based their invitation for this next congress on a broad interpretation of the term “fascia”: “Fascia is the soft tissue component of the connective tissue system that permeates the human body.... The scope of our definition of and interest in fascia extends to all fibrous connective tissues, including aponeuroses, ligaments, tendons, retinaculae, joint capsules, organ and vessel tunics, the epineurium, the meninges, the periostea, and all the endomysial and intermuscular fibers of the myofasciae.” This broad definition offers several important advantages. Rather than having to draw most often arbitrary demarcation lines between joint capsules and their intimately involved ligaments and tendons (as well as interconnected aponeuroses, retinacula, and intramuscular fasciae), fascial tissues are seen as one interconnected tensional network that adapts its fiber arrangement, length, and density according to local tensional demands. This terminology fits to the Latin root of the term “fascia” (bundle, bandage, strap, unification, binding together) and is also synonymous with the non-professional’s understanding of the term “connective tissue.” The purpose of this editorial is to share with you information that I have learned from the papers to appear in Fascia Research II, from my perspective as both a clinician and a researcher. First, I will share key findings from anatomy regarding connective tissue architecture and how joint motion mechanically affects nerves.(1,2) The biomechanics of these connections and the potential applications for human surgery is the second area in which papers are presented.(3–6) The spotlight then moves to the cellular and histologic levels,(7–10) looking in detail at how individual cells respond to mechanical forces.(11,12)

Second international fascia research congress.

Findings from papers published by key speakers at the 2007 Fascia Research Congress are presented in preparation for the second congress, October 2009, in Amsterdam.The role of fascia is demonstrated in new scientific findings in mechanotransduction between the cytoskeletal structure and the extracellular matrix, and its implications for health and disease.the presence of contractile cells (myofibroblasts) within the fascial fabric. Clinicians are interested in their role in creating contractile tonus in the fascial fabric-how myofibroblasts form, how they are activated, and their influence on passive muscle tonus.the biomechanical properties of fascial tissues: creep, relaxation, hysteresis, effect of sustained spinal flexion on lumbar tissues, strain-induced hydration changes, myofascial manipulation, and fascial viscoelastic deformation. These properties underlie the response of these tissues to therapy.how fascia is innervated, and how proprioception and pain are created, detected, and modulated by the spinal cord and the rest of the nervous system.forms of mechanical signaling within the fascial matrix, such as the tugging in the collagen matrix created by twisting acupuncture needles.new techniques for measurement of fascial motion in living tissue.

Tensegrity and mechanotransduction

Anyone who is skilled in the art of physical therapy knows that the mechanical properties, behavior and movement of our bodies are as important for human health as chemicals and genes. However, only recently have scientists and physicians begun to appreciate the key role which mechanical forces play in biological control at the molecular and cellular levels. This article provides a brief overview of a lecture presented at the First International Fascia Research Congress that convened at Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA on October 4, 2007. In this lecture, I described what we have learned over the past 30 years as a result of our research focused on the molecular mechanisms by which cells sense mechanical forces and convert them into changes in intracellular biochemistry and gene expression-a process called "mechanotransduction". This work has revealed that molecules, cells, tissues, organs, and our entire bodies use "tensegrity" architecture to mechanically stabilize their shape, and to seamlessly integrate structure and function at all size scales. Through the use of this tension-dependent building system, mechanical forces applied at the macroscale produce changes in biochemistry and gene expression within individual living cells. This structure-based system provides a mechanistic basis to explain how application of physical therapies might influence cell and tissue physiology.

Fascia 2007: The First International Fascia Research Congress—A report by Kim LeMoon

Fascia is alive! The role of the connective tissue has traditionally been relegated to the job of deftly holding our ‘parts’ together (as though that wasn’t enough). On October 4/5 2007 the First International Fascia Research Congress convened at Harvard University in Boston, at which the finest scientific minds in the world came together to tell us otherwise. The quality of the presented material, the questions raised, and the promise of collaboration yet to come as a result of this congress, was far beyond the expectations of all in attendance. •George Pellegrino, LMT, CMTPT, RMTI, Co-director of Myofascial Rehabilitation Center, Ltd., and Co-Founder of the American Institute for Myofascial Studies, LLC