Fascial Voice

Mystery Gift !

Somebody sent me this wonderful book called ‘The Extracellular Matrix and Ground Regulation” by Alfred Pischinger, one of Germany’s leading scientists. Dr. Pischinger, a Viennese anatomist, was an MD who was the head of the department of histology and embryology at the Medical Facility of the University of Vienna.

I read this book years ago when the English translation first came out. This represents 30 years of research on the fascial system. I quote a lot of this information in my Myofascial Release seminars.

Dr. Pischinger has stated that cells are not separate entities, which is the traditional way of looking at it, but part of a continuum of the extracellular matrix and the consciousness that flows through it.
 

The extracellular matrix is the collagenous web of fascia that allows the fluid of our body (the ground substance) to hydrate our entire body. Dr. Pischinger found that “disturbances of the matrix regulation can significantly compromise homeostasis efficiency, eventually causing depletion and organ failure. Stated simply, every function in every living body involves the fascial matrix in one way or another. Every cell of the body is nourished via the matrix and all the waste products of cellular metabolism likewise, pass through the ground substance. The matrix is also the terrain in which all immune responses and tissue repair processes take place.”

Dr. James Oschman is a brilliant man and a world-renowned expert in the energetic aspect of the human being and has written a wonderful book I highly recommend called Energy Medicine: The Scientific Basis. As I have been saying in seminars for quite a while now, start paying more attention to the word integrins because you will be hearing more about it in the future. The molecules called integrins are tiny filaments that pass through the cell membrane connecting the extracellular domain with the cytoskeleton and nuclear matrix within the cell.

Dr. Oschman also states that the fascial system is basically a semiconducting liquid crystal.

Dr. Pischinger’s understanding of the extracellular matrix transmits changes to the central nervous system and the brain by extension throughout the whole body. The fascial extracellular matrix is a holographic/fractal non-linear system that is very involved in phase transition.

The founder of osteopathy, Dr. Andrew Still, has many great awarenesses on the fascial system. One of the things Dr. Still said is that all disease emanates from the ground substance of the fascial system.

Hydration is not just water going down our throats, but it becomes hydration when it enters the cell. Also, nutrition is only of value if it is capable of entering the cell. The oxygen also is not getting into the cell, nor is the biochemistry hormones, information and energy necessary for every one of the cells to thrive. Traditional science could not have ignored anything more important !

The meta paradigm of traditional science is terribly flawed and incomplete. They basically view us as just bags of chemical being treating chemically or by surgery. Of course, they think we are just mindless machines. How insulting.

It is time to come out of the dark ages of healthcare and face reality –  the fascial system is the most important system because it is the conduit of our consciousness, that supports and keeps every cell of our bodies alive !

Between 836,000 and 2.5 million Americans have chronic fatigue syndrome, also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis, and 25% of people with chronic fatigue syndrome become bedbound or housebound at some point, with most never regaining their pre-disease level of functioning.

Fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome symptoms are remarkably similar. A person presenting with either condition can have pain throughout their body, headaches, joint tightness, limited range of motion, elimination problems, menstrual pain, depression, anxiety, exhaustion, sleep problems, mental lethargy and what has been called fibro fog or brain fog.

Myofascial release combined with massage therapy can be helpful in a short period of time for most people who present with these diagnoses. One systematic review, for example, determined there was “[a] large significant effect of myofascial release on pain post-treatment and a moderate effect at six months post-treatment.”

Most people with these diagnoses are exhausted, depressed and anxious. They have difficulty going to sleep and getting rest because of fascial restrictions that have not been recognized or properly treated.

Unfortunately, many fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome sufferers are told by their doctors that they will never get better or will never walk again. Therefore, we have to let clients know they are not their condition; they are powerful human beings.

Check for Glide

When a person lies down, the restrictions of the fascia can pull the joints together, which puts pressure on nerves, which affects sleep. Fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue clients often do not achieve the deep REM sleep they need for rejuvenation. Too many times, clients report that they wake up more tired than when they went to bed. Life can be quite a downward spiral for this clientele.

Clients can be very tender to touch, so using lighter myofascial release techniques, which include gentle, constant pressure, held until tightness releases, can be very helpful. A tactile examination will find the areas that are hot, hard, tender or immobile.

The fascial system is a glide system, so you are always checking for glide or lack of glide. Wherever the motion is blocked is where they have fascial restrictions. This gives the therapist uncanny accuracy as to where to treat a client, and changes to motion will morph constantly.

We have close to 8 billion people in the world today; therefore, we have close to 8 billion unique fascial train patterns. This is why the protocols we learned have nothing to do with the person lying on the table.

In fact, the art of myofascial release is learning to quiet your mind as the therapist. You always move slowly. When myofascial release is done properly, you never use force, because too much force throws the client into mental protection.

We find the barrier that is unique to each client and we apply gentle but firm sustained pressure. As the fascia releases, there is a feeling similar to butter melting or taffy stretching. You don’t slide, you just take the slack out, because there are multiple barriers in most people.

Inflammation

Inflammation is an important part of the healing process, but when it becomes thwarted, it shuts the inflammatory process down and the ground substance of fascia, which is meant to be fluid, becomes increasingly viscous. Over time, the ground substance turns into hardened tissue with a crushing pressure on pain-sensitive structures.

Fascial restrictions can generate up to approximately 2,000 pounds of pressure per square inch. This crushing pressure does not show up on standard testing like X-rays, myelograms, CAT scans or bloodwork. Myofascial release is important for clients’ recovery because its sustained pressure will release interleukin 8, which mediates the body’s inflammatory response.

Cumulative Microtrauma

In my experience, approximately 90% of clients who present with fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome have torsion in their pelvis. Commonly, the right ilia anteriorly rotates. As that occurs, the acetabulum drops down, lengthening the leg on that side.

Because we are bilateral beings, the left side tends to posterior rotate, pulling the acetabulum up on the left side, shortening the leg on that side. This sends microtrauma down through the joints with every step the client takes.

This microtrauma is cumulative. It builds and builds until the tipping point is hit and the client moves into massive dysfunction. As the pelvis torques, the pubic symphysis is forced to shear, so the client’s subconscious interprets, now that it is shearing, that it is very unstable. This sets the client up for a fight-flight-freeze response.

Then we have the other part of the scenario with a long and short leg, and so with every step the client takes, the subconscious is perceiving that the world is not under them and exaggerates the fight-flight-freeze response.

Ultimately, this whole-body torsion creates exhaustion, pain and tightness throughout the body in a very unique way. Eventually the exhaustion leads to anxiety and depression for many people.

Myofascial structural work, myofascial unwinding or myofascial rebounding allow the pelvis to level again and be mobile again. The legs will even out and the fight-flight-freeze response will be relinquished. What is amazing is that many times, people report their depression has lifted and they are not anxious anymore. They feel more like themselves again.

The Emotional Component

Most people with chronic pain and headaches, particularly those with fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome, are locked into a fight-flight-freeze response. They are in a state of mental hypervigilance, their internal alarms ringing as if danger is present constantly—and they have no conscious control over it. As long as one is in a fight-flight-freeze response, no healing is possible.

This creates what I call the broken-record effect, where the original problem that initiated everything keeps playing over and over again at the subconscious level. In other words, the person is constantly bracing internally from the car that hit them, their fall down the steps, a very difficult delivery or being attacked. They move into a state of exhaustion, anxiety and depression.

In my experience, clients who present with fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome are stuck in a rational state. This is a very simplistic yet quite accurate way of viewing trauma and the mental state of most people. Our rational state is the basis of all of our education. It is the basis of health care, which demands order and control, which would be fine it if worked; unfortunately, many times it doesn’t work well.

The power and beauty of myofascial release is that it allows the individual to move out of the rational state in a very safe, efficient and effective way, into their intuitive and instinctive side. This is the healing zone. Our intuitive, instinctive side is home to our feeling intelligence.

Another word for intuition and instinct is wisdom, which I believe we were all born with. Intuition is one of our most valuable faculties, and what I consider to be the highest form of intelligence.

Although you cannot guarantee anything in health care, there is hope for those suffering with fibromyalgia or chronic pain syndrome who seek a combination of massage and myofascial release.

John F. Barnes, PT

Myofascial Release for an Aging Population

An aging population needs health and wellness options that are gentle. For many, myofascial release is a great choice.

Myofascial Release can be helpful at any age level, from right after birth to those in their 90s and beyond. The primary principle of myofascial release is that there is no force, therefore injury to a client is very unlikely.

My perspective of myofascial release is to utilize the body structure as a handle to reach deeply into tissue, and instead of brute force, we use gentle sustained pressure into the restricted area—and we wait. There is a time factor that is very important here. As we wait, there is a biochemical, bioenergetic, hormonal response down to the cellular level.

Myofascial Release for Clients in Hospice

Myofascial release techniques can be extremely helpful for a variety of issues, some of which, like back pain, more regularly occur as we age. The fascial system tightens over the years as we go about our every day lives, falling as kids and carrying too-heavy boxes as we move as adults, for example. So much of the resulting pain and tightness, both from physical exertion and trauma, affects our fascial system.

A lot of therapists that I have trained work in the hospice situation, where people are nearing their end of their lives. They say that it is wonderful in reducing their pain and often times, they are able to cut their medications with a doctor’s approval, even sometimes eliminating it. Even clients in their 90s can experience improvement in their range of motion.

Myofascial release can be done in a bed or even in a wheelchair. Massage therapists can stand behind the client and do what is called a yoke technique to free up the trapezius and shoulder complex. For clients in a wheelchair, massage therapists can reach across from behind and release the pectorals and the abdominal/psoas complex.

Consider, too, having a client lean forward, resting on a pillow on a table in from of them, and performing myofascial release techniques to help release their back, lumbosacral area and quadriceps. Myofascial arm and leg pulls can also be very helpful.

So many therapists that work in a hospice situation report back to me that the fascial system released so many of the past traumas with their clients, helping them to release past memories and pain that many have struggled and suffered with for most of their lives. The fascial system is an electromagnetic field and the structural restrictions that come from holding tension solidified the memories that are no longer available to the conscious mind.

Myofascial Release for Jaw, Neck and Back Pain

A 92-year-old woman was referred to me by her TMJ specialist. She had constant uncontrollable mandibular motion, neck pain and back tightness and stiffness throughout her entire body. We worked with her for a little over a month and she did quite well. She came to me on her last day to thank me and tell me that me and my staff had been wonderful.

She described how she’d been a very active woman all her life and was beginning to get very scared because she was losing her memory and was in so much pain. She said she felt like her mind had cleared and the constant mandibular motion had ceased and her neck and back pain were now gone. She was moving much more fluidly and even said she felt like a 20-year-old again!

The bodies of most older patients have stiffened considerably, their head and neck are pulled forward. So many things can be attributed to old age are actually untreated fascial restrictions. No matter what the age is, myofascial release will do no harm and will help significantly coupled with your level of expertise of massage and bodywork.

Myofascial release can act as a catalyst to greatly enhance your ability in the important work that you are currently doing. It is truly the missing link in health care.

John F. Barnes, PT

The John F. Barnes’ Myofascial Release Approach® is safe, gentle, and produces consistent results in reducing pain, headaches, fibromyalgia symptoms, and increases range of motion and function. We hope that you find the following comments from some of our trained therapists to be helpful in clarifying the uniqueness and importance of our Myofascial Release Approach for your professional development.

What Your Colleagues Are Saying…

I often verbalized frustration over not knowing what to do for pain, especially after being put in charge of a chronic pain program at the hospital I worked in back in 1992! John Barnes’ MFR I was the first MFR class I took, although not the first manual therapy course, as I studied many other approaches in attempt to learn techniques and “tools” to help my patients. I soon learned that John's classes were vastly different than others because I was producing amazing results.

John's way of teaching, while presenting the science behind the work, is unique in practically every aspect, even I recognized this from the beginning. The seminars are orchestrated to facilitate learning regardless of where you are in your hands-on training and palpatory skills. The pressures used with guidance, the postural assessments, feedback on technique received, time frame held, physics lesson reminders, listening skills presented, sensory information encouraged are so important to the end result. I have learned as much about what I need to learn to help facilitate change in my patients as I have about specifics, and this is long term knowledge.

No other approach I have encountered provides the results, and I have a successful, word of mouth, PT practice built on the principles I continue to learn from John's seminars (with gratitude.) Dianne, PT, RMT, Texas

I have studied with John since 1994, as others have said “thumbs of steel” is old school. John teaches a full spectrum approach that encompasses structural work to purely energetic. John teaches us we can only take our patients/clients as far as we are willing to go ourselves. John's students are able to apply the techniques immediately upon returning to their clinic. Peter, MSPT, New York.

John Barnes style MFR has completely changed the way I treat in my clinic. The seminars are like nothing you ever got in PT school. I have always had a strong interest in manual therapy, and took electives in school, but I rarely use any of that “knowledge” in treatments anymore. I am busier than ever, and in the middle of the most severe economic down turn this country has seen in a generation.

Are the seminars worth it? You bet! Every penny, and then some. The best part is that repeats are half price. Why would I need to repeat any seminar? Because there is so much in every seminar and I was so busy trying to absorb and process as much as I could, that I missed things, or misremembered, or just needed a brush up. And, you get three days (or more) of treatment! I do realize that I am extremely biased on this topic, as I have taken almost every seminar JFB offers, some several times. As John likes to say in MFR 1, don't believe a thing I have said until you experience it for yourself. Get treated, take a seminar, jump in with both feet and find out what we are all talking about; you won't regret it! J. Christopher, PT, DPT, Pennsylvania

I'm an Occupational Therapist and would like to encourage any OT's out there reading this to take John's courses. I practiced for over 30 years before beginning my MFR journey, and have since completed nearly all courses and repeated some. I have left all my old OT techniques behind and now do only John's version of MFR with incredible results. The best part is that their healing has been at a much faster pace and with little or no pain. I've seen their lives become richer as they heal emotionally and spiritually, as well as physically because of John's holistic approach. An example of how truly remarkable this work is, is that a traditional PT sent me, an OT, her knee patient because I could get more range and function from that leg than she could! I have paid for all courses out of my own pocket, and think it would have been a bargain at twice the price. There are no words to describe how MFR performed using John's methods changes your patients' and your life, and ripples out to all those in your life's circle. MFR saved my knee which would have been replaced, removed many physical pains and restrictions, and has allowed me, at 67, to live a non-stop, active life filled with energy, joy and love. I don't know of another manual therapy approach that can make such claims. Marilyn, OT, Illinois

I was the “queen of deep tissue massage”. Steel thumbs, knuckles, elbows. It was so hard on me, and on my clients. Yet, this old form of Myofascial work, which is really soft tissue mobilization, cannot compare with JFB MFR. This is true, long lasting “release” of the tissue, body, self. And as mentioned, often so gentle, patient sustained holding, following the tissue as it begins to soften and stretch. Not forcing. Whole body perspective, as everything is connected. As you've seen, MFR is a generic term, and often is just another way to say soft tissue mobilization. JFB MFR engages with the core of fascia, and catalyzes change in the collagenous layer and ground substance. Real change. Experience the difference yourself - get treated by an experienced Barnes’ Myofascial Release® therapist! That's the best way to begin feeling the difference. Eileen RN, MRT, CMT, Indiana

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40. “Tendon Strength”: Fascia, the Sinew Channels & Internal Martial Arts – Part 3. Aug 31, 2018

Welcome to our MFR (Myofascial Release) Treatment Centers, where we believe in the profound healing potential of Myofascial Release Therapy. As pioneers in this field, we've witnessed firsthand the life-changing benefits that this therapy can bring to individuals seeking relief from physical discomfort and wanting to optimize their overall wellness.

Myofascial Release Therapy is a specialized hands-on technique designed to target and release tension within the fascia, the connective tissue that surrounds and supports every muscle, bone, nerve, and organ in the body. Unlike traditional massage therapy, which primarily focuses on muscles, Myofascial Release Therapy delves deeper, addressing the root cause of pain and restriction.

Here are some compelling reasons why incorporating Myofascial Release Therapy into your wellness routine can lead to a happier, healthier life:

• Pain Relief: Chronic pain can significantly impact your quality of life, making even simple tasks challenging. Myofascial Release Therapy offers a natural and effective solution for managing pain by releasing tension in the fascia. Whether you're dealing with back pain, neck stiffness, or joint discomfort, this therapy can provide much-needed relief, allowing you to regain control of your life.

• Improved Flexibility and Range of Motion: Tightness and restrictions in the fascia can limit your flexibility and range of motion, affecting your ability to move freely and perform daily activities. Myofascial Release Therapy focuses on releasing these restrictions, restoring elasticity to the fascia and promoting better mobility. With regular sessions, you'll notice significant improvements in your flexibility, making it easier to bend, twist, and stretch without discomfort.

• Enhanced Athletic Performance: Athletes and fitness enthusiasts understand the importance of peak performance and injury prevention. Myofascial Release Therapy can be a valuable addition to any training regimen, helping athletes recover faster, reduce muscle soreness, and improve overall performance. By addressing fascial restrictions and imbalances, this therapy optimizes biomechanical efficiency, allowing athletes to move with greater ease and power.

• Stress Reduction and Relaxation: Stress is a common culprit behind many physical ailments, from tension headaches to muscle tension. Myofascial Release Therapy not only targets physical tension but also promotes deep relaxation and stress relief. During a session, your therapist will use gentle, sustained pressure to release tightness in the fascia, inducing a state of profound relaxation. Many clients report feeling lighter, calmer, and more at ease after a Myofascial Release session, making it an excellent tool for managing stress and promoting overall well-being.

• Holistic Healing: The body is a complex interconnected system, and true healing requires a holistic approach. Myofascial Release Therapy addresses not only the symptoms but also the underlying causes of pain and dysfunction. By releasing restrictions in the fascia and restoring balance to the body's structural system, this therapy supports long-term healing and prevents future injuries. It's not just about treating the symptoms—it's about creating lasting changes that promote health and vitality from the inside out.

• Improved Posture: Poor posture is a common issue in today's sedentary lifestyle, leading to neck pain, backache, and other musculoskeletal problems. Myofascial Release Therapy can help correct postural imbalances by releasing tension in the fascia and realigning the body's structure. Through targeted techniques, your therapist can address tightness in key areas, such as the shoulders, hips, and spine, promoting better posture and reducing the risk of pain and injury.

• Emotional Release: It's not uncommon for emotional stress and trauma to manifest as physical tension in the body. Myofascial Release Therapy provides a safe and supportive environment for emotional release, allowing stored emotions to surface and be processed. Many clients report feeling a sense of emotional release and catharsis during sessions, leading to greater emotional resilience and well-being.

• Enhanced Circulation: Healthy circulation is essential for delivering oxygen and nutrients to the body's tissues and removing waste products. Myofascial Release Therapy can improve circulation by releasing tightness in the fascia and reducing pressure on blood vessels and nerves. This can result in better tissue oxygenation, faster healing, and overall improved health.

At our Myofascial Release Treatment Centers in Malvern, Pennsylvania and Sedona, Arizona, we're committed to providing personalized care and empowering our clients to take control of their health and wellness journey. Our team of experienced therapists combines expertise with compassion, creating a supportive environment where healing can flourish.

Whether you're seeking relief from chronic pain, recovering from an injury, or simply looking to enhance your quality of life, Myofascial Release Therapy offers a safe, natural, and effective solution. Take the first step towards a healthier, happier you and experience the transformative power of Myofascial Release Therapy today.

Contact MFR Treatment Centers to schedule your consultation and discover how Myofascial Release Therapy can benefit you. Your journey to optimal wellness starts here.

Remember, when your fascia feels good, you feel good.