Connective tissues – fasciae – are found throughout the human body, from the top of the head to the tips of the fingers and toes. You can imagine them as the body’s internal network, like sheaths that envelop and connect every
body structures – from internal organs, muscles, and bones to nerves and blood vessels. These tissues make up ligaments, tendons, joint capsules, cartilage, and the discs between vertebrae.
The primary function of fasciae in our body is to connect, attach, and stabilize the musculoskeletal system, to envelop and protect various organs, and to maintain the patency of blood vessels.
What revolutionary discovery has been made about connective tissues?
In school, we learned that muscles hold our bones together, allowing us to move and make motions. But, in the past 20 years, researchers from prestigious world institutes and universities have made new discoveries, revealing that it is actually the connective tissues that keep the entire structure of our body stable and firm. Muscles, bones, and nerves also participate in the whole process, but they are not the only ones, as was previously thought. These elements of the skeletal-muscular-nervous system (connective tissues, muscles, bones, and nerves) together form an inseparable system that provides support to the human body.
These discoveries, which focus on the connective tissues that form the basic architecture of the human body, have opened up an entirely new approach to human-body therapy.
If we were to delve deeper into the world of connective tissues, we would see that they give the body its shape, proportions, and volume. This applies to, for example, the length, width, and depth of the chest, abdominal cavity, neck, etc. Connective tissue connects all structures in the body and maintains its integrity. t the same time, it allows for better mobility of all parts of our body. Muscles and connective tissue work together as a well-coordinated and synchronized system. Through the interconnected network of connective tissues, the mechanical force generated by the contraction of muscles and individual connective tissues is transmitted. For this to function properly, the connective tissues must be preserved.
If this structure is compromised, if the connective tissues weaken, the muscles lose their support because the connective tissue cannot effectively direct the force used to make movements, instead compensating with increased action – contraction. This leads to various problems we face in everyday life – from back and shoulder pain to the complete deformation of certain body parts in patients with neuromuscular spasm or hypotonia, as is the case with cerebral palsy, spina bifida, muscular dystrophy, and others.
Without connective tissue, the human body would be a heap of flesh and bones without shape and the ability to stand upright. Because of this knowledge, there has been a complete turnaround in the treatment of diseases and conditions caused by the deformation of fascial connective tissue. The success in treating these conditions through therapies that release fasciae is remarkably high.
What are connective tissues made of?
Connective tissue is made up of collagen fibers that give it strength and elastin fibers that give it elasticity. Thanks to these fibers, connective tissue has tremendous internal tension, which allows us to carry our body weight effortlessly and effectively resist external pressure.
Photo 1 – Connective tissue fibers filled with fluid, magnified 25 times under an endoscope.
Photo 2. Connective tissue fibers connected with muscle fibers, forming an inseparable system within the body. The only way to separate them is physically – by cutting.
To better understand what we want to explain, we will use an example that is probably familiar to everyone. In our childhood, during play, it often happened that one child would lie on their stomach while another would climb onto their back. The child on the floor feels the pressure of the other child’s body weight on their back but can withstand it – the internal tension of the connective tissue is so great that the chest easily withstands this pressure. Despite this load, the chest does not “collapse” or flatten under external pressure.
To practically demonstrate this, during our lectures, we often select a person from the audience and press as hard as we can with our hands on the front and back of their chest. Although the feeling is quite unpleasant, all that happens is very slight local bending of the chest. We want to highlight that when the connective tissue is healthy, it provides internal support to the body during everyday motor functions and has a huge capacity to resist even very large external pressures. Connective tissues have other important roles in the human body, but these will be discussed in other texts.
Study of connective tissues in medicine
Connective tissues/fasciae in the human body are not new. They have been known in medicine for over 100 years. Why, then, are we only now talking about them? Because the important roles these tissues play in the human body have been discovered and established in the last 20-30 years. Thanks to this knowledge, there has been a change in the way of thinking and methodology of studying the musculoskeletal system. Additionally, technological advances have allowed the use of more modern instruments in the study of fasciae.
After initial research in the 1970s and the publication of articles in scientific journals, scientists and enthusiasts gathered and founded the International Association for the Study of Fasciae. They continued modestly with research in this field in the following years until October 2007, when the association organized the first international congress on connective tissues at Harvard Medical School in Boston, USA. More than 800 scientists, doctors, and therapists of various orientations gathered at the event. Thanks to this congress, a broader discussion on the importance of connective tissues began, and they received deserved publicity. So far, six scientific congresses have been held, taking place every two to three years. With the increase in research and the exchange of information among scientists, this field is constantly developing.
Today, there are already two generations of scientists and groups at universities studying connective tissues. Some of the researchers include: Jap Van der Wal from the University of Amsterdam, Peter Huijing from Maastricht University, Jean-Claude Guimberteau, a surgeon from France, the Stecco family from the University of Padova in Italy, Robert Schleip from the University of Ulm in Germany, Mark Driscoll from the Musculoskeletal Biomechanics Research Laboratory in Canada, Leonid Blum, a cyberneticist and inventor, and many others.
Additionally, many books have been published on this topic.
