Personal Training Academy believes the body is integrated, linking individual muscles into functional complexes. This philosophy leads to new holistic strategies for health professionals to resolve complex postural and movement issues.
Traditional weight-lifting depends on muscle-specific program-design with the goal of muscle-specific hypertrophy. For example, a concentration biceps curl attempts to isolate the biceps brachii, although by gripping the weight one also engages the wrist flexors. These exercises tend to be the most far-removed from functional movement, due to their attempt to micromanage the variables acting on the individual muscles. Functional exercises, on the other hand, attempt to incorporate as many variables as possible (fascia, balance, multiple joints, multiple planes of movement), thus decreasing the load on the muscle but increasing the complexity of motor coordination and flexibility.
Fascia is a layer of fibrous tissue. Fascia is a structure of connective tissue that surrounds muscles, groups of muscles, blood vessels, and nerves, binding some structures together, while permitting others to slide smoothly over each other. They are various kinds of classified according to their distinct layers, their functions and their anatomical location: superficial fascia, deep (or muscle) fascia, and visceral (or parietal) fascia.
Understanding Myofascial Meridians gives personal trainers a new perspective in posture, function and their exercise prescription and in particular the interplay of movement and stability. Understanding ‘Myofascial Lines’ as a whole gives insights into referral problems that you cannot get from considering the muscles in isolation alone and shows how to resolve postural compensations in a way that no analysis of any single muscle can give.