What is Fascia Training and How to Do It: Explained for Footballers

Fascia training is a new term and form of training that focuses on improving the quality and efficiency of your connective tissue, or fascia. Fascia training can help improve athleticism, decrease the risk of injury, and even improve overall health due to its impact on mitochondrial function.

This holistic training method targets the fascia, which is the largest organ in your body, and helps improve the principle of bio-tensegrity in your body which improves overall proprioception, interception, and exteroception. Proprioception is the ability to know where you are in space, interception is the ability to feel what is happening inside your body, and exteroception is the ability to perceive stimuli from outside the body.

During my years of studying kinesiology:rehab science in college there was very little to no information on fascia because scientists used to believe it was filler material. The exciting part is that nowadays there is a ton of new fascinating research on fascia coming out about its impact in athletic performance, injury prevention, and mitochondrial function as mentioned before.

In this blog I will explain what fascia training is, how to start training your fascia, as well as answer many questions you may have about this pretty new training method.

Can you Train the Fascial System?

The human body is made up of various systems and each system can be trained in their own unique way.

• Circulatory
• Respiratory
• Integumentary
• Digestive
• Urinary
• Reproductive
• lymphatic
• Nervous
• Endocrine
• Immune
• Skeletal
• Muscular
• Fascial

Think of the fascial system, or the fascial network, as a spider web that holds everything together inside your body. Fascia is the same exact thing as connective tissue and each main organs are also surrounded and held together by fascia.

Most people think that the biggest organ of the human body is the skin, but it is really the fascia because it is under your skin and there are various layers to it. As a sensory organ, fascia has 6-10 times more nerve endings than muscles do which is why it plays a huge role proprioception, interception, and exteroception.

A lot of people don’t think fascia training is real because we cannot see the fascia working in real time, since we would have to be inside the body to see it, but it can be trained. One important misconception to clear up right now is that anytime you are training you are really training all of your systems because nothing is ever working in isolation.

We cannot isolate fascia and we cannot isolate muscles. When we do “fascia-based” training we are still training the muscles, tendons, and ligaments, and even when we do “muscle-based” training we are also training the fascia, tendons, and ligaments, but in different ways that give different results. The main goal of fascia training is to learn how to apply tension throughout your body and develop a strong foundation for reflexive movement.

Another way to view the fascia system is as an electric suit that surrounds your body and allows the signal from your brain and body to run faster because fascia is made up of EZ water, which creates electrical charges and batteries inside your body.

As an aspiring soccer player you want healthy, smooth fascia without any adhesions that allows all of the layers to slide along each other properly, which leads to effortless and fluid movement due to better transfer of energy within the body.

Check out this video to see the role of fascia in kinetic linking and energy movement throughout the body. Fascia is what allows the energy to move smoothly within your body starting with the feet and even though this is a boxing video, all of the same concepts apply on the field when you are running and kicking the soccer ball.

So, in more simple terms yes you can train the fascia system to become more fascia driven.

What is Fascia Training?

Fascia training is a type of training that focuses on strengthening, stabilizing, and restoring balance within the fascia web by training areas of the body with the most fascia inserts, the tongue, the feet, the hands, and the spine. The best way to describe “fascia training” is that it helps you get more subconscious access to the deeper layers of your body so that you can utilize and sequence those deeper tissues to fire together with less effort.

Fascia training emphasizes the quality of your connective tissues, how well you can transfer energy within the body, and treats the body as one whole unit, not as separate muscles that contract individually. Fascia training will help you awaken dormant receptors in your body, meaning it will help regain sensation in those areas, as well as help you be better able to tension, activate, coordinate, and sequence your muscles, which are surrounded by fascia, at the right time during athletic movements.

The main properties of fascia that are worked during “fascia training” and myofascial release, a fancy word for saying self-massage include:

• Viscosity- relating to water and how hydrated or dehydrated the fascia is
• Elasticity- the ability to store and use elastic energy
• Biotensegrity- conceptual model that describes how the body’s biological structures are held together and interact with each other through tensional and compressional forces.

This is the best video to visualize what the effects of training your fascia looks like. Look at how springy and effortless these guys jump and look at their physiques. This is more simple to see because they are jumping in place, but during sprints and other athletic movements fascia has a different role since you are moving through space.

To begin training your fascia you have to train the four key areas of the fascia system:

• The tongue
• The feet
• The hands
• The spine

Fascia training starts with having the proper tongue posture which is referred to as mewing. Mewing refers to the proper tongue posture, pressure, and suction on the roof of the mouth and it is required to create and sustain proper cranial pressure as well as help you better engage the fascia system. 

Along with improving mewing, and making it a more reflexive effort so that you do it correctly and naturally, fascia training also involves learning how to apply proper fascial tension to the feet, arch, and toes. It is also important to know that the tongue has a myofascial line, the deep frontal line, that connects it directly to your big toes and this line makes your tongue and feet act like a pulley system.

Your feet are your roots, like the roots of a tree, and they are your one and only connection to the ground which is why it is important to have full functioning feet with toes that can retract, a strong arch, an ankle that knows how to act as a spring, and strong fascial connections with the rest of the body. As you begin to train your plantar fascia, the bottom of your foot, you will begin to develop a stronger neurological connection from the feet to the glutes, since the glutes are made up of mostly fascial inserts. 

Your hands are your second root and how you grab on to things, which means they have a huge impact, literally, on how you grasp on to life and other objects. The spinal engine theory states how the spine, which has a ton of fascial inserts, is the main driver of motion and there is a natural sway of the spine that has to happen as we move through space.

Fascia Training Exercises

The best way to start a form of fascia training is to get better at mewing and to start becoming more aware of your tongue posture. From there, its important to use fascia exercises for the feet to help you regain full foot function, which means being able to retract the toes, engage the arch, and lock the ankle while having the anterior tibialis tendon prominent.

The following exercises look like they are “foot” exercises but they are really supposed to be glute exercises. This means if you do not feel your glutes working at all while trying the following exercises you have a lot of fascial fitness to build up and this means you do not have easy subconscious access to the deeper layers of your fascia.

Overtime, the more you do these exercises, which have to be done correctly, the more you will start to feel your glutes, which means you are waking up the deeper layers of your body. The more you start to feel the glutes during these exercises, the more your fascia is working and overtime the goal is to feel the tension coming from the core as well.

• Self massage your feet with a spiky ball or tennis ball – 3 minutes each side
• Towel retractions – 3 minutes each side
• Toe Curls- 3 minutes each side
• Barefoot Hops / mini bounces – 3 minutes total
• Single leg balance- 2 minutes each side
• Spend a lot of time barefoot, go on barefoot walks, and build up tolerance to go on barefoot jogs or runs
• Also wear barefoot shoes as much as possible

Use this link to get access to video demonstrations for the exercises!

These are the most basic exercises to begin developing your fascia. If you are interested in learning more, private training, or getting more exercises and a full guide on how to train your fascia and more please contact me and mention this blog post or fill out the form on our private training page.

Summary

To summarize, fascia training is a new form of training that many people do not really understand yet, but it works and there is plenty of research and case studies, on even Premier League and Champions league level players who have tried this way of training and have experienced tremendous benefits and results. I personally haven’t trained professional players yet, but the research and results from other fascia experts shows that this training worked and I have seen benefits as well with my players which ages range from 7 to 28.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you perform Myo-fascial release to get rid of fascia adhesions?

Fascia adhesions, or knots, develop when your fascia gets dehydrated and sticky. To perform myo-fascial release use a spiky ball or a tennis ball on any tight areas of your body.You can also try other tools such as a golf ball or a massage gun. With myofascial realease you have to spend time working on an area and do it mindfully to get the best results.

How does fascia affect poor posture and athletic performance?

The fascial network plays a huge role in proper posture and athletic performance because fascia surrounds and encases everything in your body from muscles, to tendons, ligaments, nerves, and basically everything else. Having smooth fascia without any adhesions allows the layers of fascia to slide properly and leads to more fluid, effortless movements. If you are looking for an individual training program that offer soccer training, fascia training, and more make sure to reach out!