Women #FierceOver50: Your Issues Are In Your Tissues

“Rolling out your pain” is, I believe, the single most important thing you can do to keep yourself injury free and to reduce pain. I SO want you to feel the amazing self-massage sensations of rolling out your pain. And you will, in the video below. But here’s the big takeaway:

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If you are #FierceOver50,

rolling out your fascia

is the single most important anti-aging activity

you can add to your self-care and movement routines.

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Let’s break this down, piece by piece, so that this claim makes sense. Then please watch the video and try out these self-massage techniques and feel what I am talking about.

Fascia 101

Your fascia, or connective tissue, is a seamless and moist honeycomb-like body stocking that holds your entire body together and prevents you from dissolving into a blob full of bones and organs. Think of it as a tapestry that weaves around each and every internal part: joints, organs, muscles, and ligaments. Some call your fascia a “soft skeleton.” (Fascia, David Lesondak, Handspring Publishing, 2017).

What Does Fascia Do for Us?

When we have an injury or pain, we typically think that a particular muscle is injured and we want to fix that muscle. For instance, I used to worry a lot about my the muscles of my frozen right shoulder, or a particular spot on my low back that continually hurt. But, now, I look at those individual muscles as part of a whole, and, hopefully, very moist cellular network comprised of your fascia. We are correcting the illusion, these days, of fixing separate muscles. Now, we understand that each muscle works in concert with the fascia that slips and slides around it.

Do You Have Injuries that Won’t Heal?

I did. My low back and my right shoulder kept right on hurting through years of yoga classes. I did see doctors, had x-rays, and did physical therapy (and I recommend that you, too, gather all the information you need).

My injuries and my chronic pain only started to improve when I started to use my YogaTuneUp® self-massage balls to help repair my fascia. And it didn’t take much. I usually rolled from about 15-30 minutes on various parts of my body. Over time, I started to feel much better.

You see, muscles can heal and get stronger in one or two months, but your fascia needs 6 months to two years to return to its optimal state.

Fascia Dries Out and You Become Stuck

Fascia, when not part of a moving, healthy human, dries out, develops adhesions, invites pain, and reshapes to either habitual sedentary practices or habitual movement. A violinist, a basketball player, and a computer programmer will all suffer musculoskeletal deformation of their fascia.

You won’t want to hear this, but your fascia starts to feel and behave like beef jerky, and the best way to bring it back to life is to give it the hydration of blood flow and oxygen, which happens when you massage these tissues back to life. See the photo of moist, healthy, slippy-slidey fascia on the right from Tom Myers, one of the first medical professionals to speak about the role of fascia in our bodies.

If you sit in front of a computer for years (even if you exercise an hour a day), like I did, your fascia starts to memorize that hunched forward position. And, it gets worse. We are learning the extent to which this postural problem affects your entire nervous system including your stress levels and your emotions.

Current research on fascia is in its very beginning stages. We are beginning to learn the extent to which deformed and dehydrated fascia affects the nervous system, our emotions, and our stress levels. Connections are being drawn between the nervous system that lives in our gut, our respiratory system in which improper breathing contributes to anxiety, and the result of chronic stress and pain.

The New Fascia Self-Massage Roll Out

I want to show you how this works. Join me for a few fascia-awakening roll outs and find out where your fascia is stuck and needs some self-massage love!

Click the Video Below to Learn How to Massage your Fascia!

Love and Gratitude,

AnnMerle

P.S I admit, it helps immensely if you have these balls. You can buy the YogaTuneUp® starter set for 54.95 plus tax and shipping on my website (https://www.annmerle.com). And, you can also sign up for my free newsletter. Just sayin, let’s connect!

Okay, I do make a tiny, affiliate bonus if you buy these balls from me. But really, this is not what my business is about.

I am all about supporting you in the second half of your life, so that you can put those exhausting achievement patterns behind you and learn to feel hopeful, excited, energized, and fabulous. ????‍♀️

If you are an exhausted achiever like I was, you will never regret buying these balls. I keep them in my travel bag and always have a set in my car. You can always use tennis balls in a sock or rolled up towels until you get yours, but once you feel these balls on your skin, you will never go back. So,