Fascial Stretching

What is Fascia?

According to Guy Voyer, D.O., a world renowned French Osteopath and educator, fascia is the “inner” skin of your body. It is the tissue that connects and shapes every muscle, organ, blood vessel and nerve. This is particularly important to patients and athletes because it is the soft tissue that envelopes and links your muscle fibers thus playing an important role in determining the range of motion of every joint in your body. Moreover, it doesn’t matter whether you are an elite athlete or just a weekend warrior, if the fascia is injured or abnormal you can never achieve optimal levels of flexibility, strength and performance in sports and activities of daily living.

Myofascial Stretching

I had the unique opportunity to study under Guy Voyer D.O who developed this revolutionary form of stretching. Myofascial stretching involves placing the body in specific postures and contracting your muscles so that specific myofascial (myo meaning “muscle”) is elongated. Because of its unique structure, fascia forms connections throughout your body and is thus a global form of stretching and is more effective than isolated forms of static and dynamic stretching that most of us are familiar with.