This document discusses fascia, the connective tissue that surrounds muscles and connects different parts of the body. It explains that fascia has long been overlooked but is important for functions like muscle strength, joint mobility, and immune system health. The document introduces Fascial Stretch Therapy and LifeStretch, two methods for addressing fascia imbalances. Fascial Stretch Therapy involves hands-on techniques like traction and oscillation to mobilize joints and fascial lines. LifeStretch teaches self-stretching to maintain results from Fascial Stretch Therapy and improve mobility, flexibility, and fascial health.

1. 26 canfitpro MAY/JUNE 2013
F
irst off—this is not about stretching your client’s
face! We’re discussing ‘fascia’—the one word
commonly used to categorize all of the body’s
connective tissue except blood and bone, which
are also connective tissue.
Fascia has been ignored for centuries by the medical,
therapy, sports, and yes, fitness industries. It has long been
thought that it is nothing more than the fuzzy glue that
tacks down your skin to muscle, wraps around all muscles
and basically connects everything to well, everything!
While that part is still true, pioneers like Robert
Schleip, PhD and Thomas Myers, LMT and founder of
KMI, have used research and therapy in fascia to promote
the importance of fascia in health and fitness. Here is a partial
list of where fascia affects function in your body:
• Muscles (strength, conditioning, flexibility)
• Joints (range of motion, pain, mobility patterns)
• Nervous system (balance, coordination, reaction)
• Immune system (resistance to stress, toxins)
• Circulatory system (hormones, nutrition delivery)
If fascia can affect function in virtually all these systems of your
body, then it is a priority for all trainers and instructors to under-
stand basics about fascial anatomy.
Fascial anatomy
and function
Author of Anatomy Trains,
Thomas Myers likes to say,
“We started out as an embryo
with only one muscle that then
divided into 600 muscles when
we were born”. This is a great
image for how all muscles came
from one, so that even after they
divided into 600 muscles each
with its own name, they do not
function or communicate in
isolation. Brain research has
confirmed that we learn to
groove movement patterns with
multiple muscles not single
muscles.
Myers also likes to say that
“muscles without fascia is just
hamburger”. That is, fascia
gives not just form or shape
to muscles and therefore our
entire body soft tissue structure
but also determines function.
After all, if you get a tear in the
fascia covering a muscle, that muscle does not function well at all
and can cause a lot of pain. In fact research shows that most soft
tissue injuries occur in connective tissue more than in the muscle.
Since fascia connects to everything in the body, it has a tendency
to shorten and thicken when you are under physical, mental or
emotional stress. Kind of like when a callous first develops when
you first start training with a barbell; that’s how fascia reacts to
stress. It can also scar down and cause improper or even painful
muscle contraction or stretching; and of course, imbalances in
fascia can form trigger points. All of these things can produce
faulty movement patterns.
Therefore, when we see our client perform a squat
incorrectly, the real cause of the problem can come from
many areas, making it more complicated to assess. But
if we learn to ‘see’ the body in a series of long connected
lines, then it is much easier to assess and address your cli-
ent’s imbalances and even pain. You can trace the lines to the
source(s) of the compensations. That is, you should be able to see
where the fascia is under compression, where it is under tension
and where it gets twisted.
Understanding and fixing the real cause of poor movement
patterns like the squat and not just the compensation is the real
solution. Much of the time the cause and the solution is in the fascia.
The Stretch To Win™ (STW) System provides two big solutions
that everyone in fitness can master and implement if they want to
be on the cutting edge of fascial training with their clients:
1. Fascial Stretch Therapy™ (FST™)
2. LifeStretch™
Stretching for
Fascial Fitness
HEALTH
By Ann Frederick, KMI and Chris Frederick, PT, KMI
“Traction”

2. MAY/JUNE 2013 canfitpro 27
Fascial Stretch Therapy (FST)
FST is the original solution that many individual as well as large
fitness centers have started to offer their clients. FST focuses on the
fascia to accomplish the following goals with clients:
• Provide an immediate solution to problems that arise within
an assessment or training session. Examples: pain, joint pinch, tight
muscle or joint, weakness.
• Increases confidence of both client and trainer knowing they
have answers and solutions if problems arise.
• Faster, better results in general fitness training, post-rehab
and weight loss.
FST Essentials (FSTE) was designed specifically to fit an FST
session of 5-15 minutes into, before or after a training session.
Specific benefits are:
• Before training: can be a quick general or specific dynamic
mobilization-stretch
• During training: fix problem and get right back to training
• After training: cool down and focus on slow, moving stretches
to prevent soreness, accelerate recovery and regain lost flexibility.
FSTE focuses on eight key muscle groups called “The Great 8™”
that lie within full fascial lines to help your clients. The client lies
on a massage table with four stabilization straps to secure one leg
when needed (note: if there is no table, it can easily done on a floor
mat). Based on our 10 Principles we use hands-on techniques of
traction, oscillation and circumduction to mobilize joints, muscles
and fascial lines in all directions of movement. These movements
are performed with unique wave-like, undulating techniques.
Mobilization-stretching of specific fascial lines is progressed by
connecting the joint capsule to the deeper core muscles, then all
the way out to superficial ones.
Here is an example of how FST Essentials can correct
a common problem that comes up when assessing and
training your client’s squat:
Many clients have one shorter leg, more or less. While it may
not show up in a squat in all clients, many of us have seen a client
who has a high hip or waist on one side whether standing and set-
ting for a squat, if not also when they drop into it. Squatting often
also shows up as a hip shift and sometimes even a rotation, if the
leg is short enough. If anyone trains with these kinds of imbalances,
breakdown and injury is sure to occur with progressive loading.
FSTE offers quick solutions to this and other common problems
seen with your clients.
After our squat assessment determines that our client has a
“Lengthen affected lateral line”
CORE 4 LOWER BODY:
1. Hip flexors lie in
the Deep Front Line
2. Glutes lie in
the Back...
2. (cont.)
...and Functional
Lines
3. Quadratus
Lumborum
lies in the
Lateral and
Spiral Lines
shorter leg, we then bring him or her to a comfortable massage table
and have them lie on their back with shoes off. The exact difference
in leg length is determined then we go about correcting it.
Here are the steps:
1. Traction (pictured page 26)
2. Lengthen affected lateral line (see image left)
3. Lengthen non-affected line
4. Repeat affected side
5. Re-check LL
6. Re-assess squat and re-groove correct movement pattern
We said previously that The Great 8 contains eight key muscle
regions that lie within major fascial lines. These are the continuous
lines of muscle chains and fascial links that cause the most problems
in clients. We can break down The Great 8 into the Core 4 of the
lower and upper body.
4. Latissimus dorsi
lies in the back
»

3. 28 canfitpro MAY/JUNE 2013
HEALTH
If you have only 5-10 minutes in which you want to focus on
the lower or upper body for a before, during or after training fascial
stretch then you just do the appropriate lower or upper Core 4. Home
program design parallels what you did on the table or floor with the
1-on-1 FSTE and is explained in the next section.
LifeStretch™
After your client has been assessed and imbalances corrected
with FSTE, a program must be given to your client to help them
maintain the success they achieved with you. If you are a group
fitness instructor, you may want to implement a new group fitness
workout that emphasizes mobility, flexibility and stretching in a
way that is not boring or too slow and is much different than yoga
or pilates. Both can be done with a self-stretch program we call
LifeStretch.
LifeStretch builds a stretch matrix by working from the core
out, just like in FSTE. Depending on what the client or group needs
that day, you can progress their program by starting with the Core
4 for lower or upper body. After you progress them to the entire
Great 8, you can build the matrix by adding short to long, deep to
superficial, one-joint to multi-joint muscles that connect in fascial
lines. Teaching the client how to properly mobilize and stretch all
of their fascial lines empowers them to take a part in maintaining
the great workouts you have designed for them so they reach their
goals faster and more effectively.
Part two of this article in the next issue will focus on more
detail of how to use LifeStretch for group training and individual
instruction.
Ann and Chris Frederick of the Stretch to Win Institute will be teaching
a pre-conference workshop and in-conference sessions at the 2013
canfitpro Toronto International Fitness and Club Business Conference
and Trade Show on August 14-18. For more details to register for the
FSTE pre-con, please visit www.canfitpro.com/toronto.
CORE 4 UPPER BODY:
The 10 FUNDAMENTAL
PRINCIPLES Of FASCIAL
STRETCH THERAPY™
1. Synchronize Breathing with
movement
2. Tune Nervous System to current
conditions
3. Follow a logical Order
4. Achieve range of motion Gain
WITHOUT Pain
5. Stretch Fascia, not just muscles
6. Use Multiple Planes of Movement
7. Target the entire Joint
8. Get maximal lengthening with
Traction
9. Facilitate body Reflexes for optimal
results (PNF)
10. Adjust stretching to current Goals
1. Pec minor
lies in the
Deep Front
Arm Line
2. Rhomboids lie in
Deep Back Arm Line
3. Rotator cuff
lies in Deep
Front Arm Line
4. Levator
scapula lies
in Deep
Back
Arm
Line