Scientific answer: The body is connected from the top of the head to the tips of the toes with fascia. It is a fibrous substance just under the skin and penetrating all the way into the deepest structures of our body. It is made up of collagen and elastin and surrounds our muscles (myo) and all our internal organs with connective tissue (fascia). It becomes tight over the course of a lifetime for various reasons: habitual posture, trauma and surgery, and dehydration. When thickened or scarred it can exert as much as 2,000 lbs./sq. inch of tensile strength, which can create pain in the body and restricted movement. It will stretch and return to its normal relaxed state through Myofascial Release.
Practical answer: Have you ever tried to do something you've done a thousand times before and one day your body won't let you; reaching up to a high shelf, getting up off the floor, bending over? People find ways to describe it: "I threw my back out." "My knee locked up." "I got a stitch in my side." Even though it seems like a muscular problem that suddenly happened that day, it is actually a problem created by connective tissue in the body that has become short, thick, and inflexible over time. It isn't an inevitable and irreversible part of aging. It is also responsible for that phenomenon that occurs after you've been injured or in an accident. Days, months, even years have passed, yet you continue to experience pain and restricted movement, causing you to wonder if you're crazy for thinking it might be related. You are experience a "freeze response" from the fascia in your body. During trauma the body reacts to what it perceives as life threatening. A "freeze response" is a holding pattern that gets programmed into the fascia at the moment of impact. It remembers the posture you were in at the time of the injury and it tries to protect your body from ever returning to the posture again. You don't realize you are walking around with that avoidance pattern in your body.
Myofascial Release serves to uncover and unlock the holding patterns in your body,
in a safe environment so your body can let go of those restrictions and