Fascia is this connective sheath that surrounds and holds all of your muscles together. It can contract and relax and helps support the function of the muscles within.
As I train for Ironman, I find that this year, my fascia is creating some more interesting problems. It seems to be tightening up more this year than in previous years.
It’s been tightening down on my kneecaps in response to heavy training and causing some pain there during the morning after. My solution is to grab my trusty spoon and give spoonage to the area around the kneecap, which magically causes the fascia to relax and release its clamping down on the kneecap. I also experience the fascia just literally tightening up to a point where my legs are super stiff from running. I have to remember to loosen them up by accentuating my kick back during running, which seems to lessen its pressure. Also, in my calves, the fascia doesn’t relax fast enough in the next day; I often have to use my TP Massage Roller to loosen up the fascia around my calf muscles.
No matter what, I go each week to ART and Graston which helps my fascia to release after hard training and gets me going for the next workout. Without it, I would not be able to keep up with training day after day.