The question comes up at least once a day at our Center in Dallas, “What is the Fascia?”
The following summary is taken from an article titled, Fascia Research Congress Evidence From the 100 Year Perspective of Andrew Taylor Still, written by Thomas W. Findley, MD Phd and Mona Shalwala, MS-IV.
Fascia… “sheathes, permeates, divides and sub-divides every portion of all animal bodies; surrounding and penetrating every muscle and all its fibers- every artery, and every fiber”- Still.
Fascia is a connective tissue that surrounds and connects every muscle and organ, forming continuity throughout the body. It is considered to be any dense irregular connective tissue sheet in the human body, including aponeuroses, joint capsules, or muscular envelopes such as the endo-, peri,- and epimysium (Langevin adn Huijing, 2009). The intramuscular extracellular matrix is composted of endomysium, perimysium, and epimysium. The epimysium surrounds each muscle and is continuous with tendons that attach muscles to bones. The perimysium divides the muscle into fascicles or muscle fiber bundles. The endomysium is a continuous network of connective tissue that covers individual muscle fibers with an ability to adapt to volume variations of muscles during contraction, and to resist high pressure without damage (A. Stecco et al., 2009).