fascia— what is all the hype??

Welcome back, curious humans! Today we're diving into fascia—that miraculous, mysterious web of connective tissue that literally holds you together. And if you're hypermobile like me, understanding your fascia might just change everything about how you relate to your body.

what even IS fascia?

Picture this: you're unwrapping a raw chicken breast (stay with me here), and you notice that thin, translucent white layer that clings to the meat? That's fascia. Now imagine that tissue isn't just a wrapper on the outside, but a continuous three-dimensional web that weaves through your ENTIRE body—around every fiber of every muscle, every organ, every nerve, every blood vessel, all the way down to the cellular level.

Fascia is connective tissue made primarily of collagen and elastin fibers suspended in a gel-like ground substance. It's everywhere. It separates things that need to be separate and connects things that need to communicate. It's the soft tissue architecture of your body—and it's been criminally underappreciated by Western medicine until relatively recently.

For decades, anatomists literally scraped fascia away and threw it in the trash so they could see the "important" structures underneath. We now know this is like throwing away the scaffolding and wiring of a building and wondering why things don't work right.

the fascia-hypermobility connection

Here's where things get really interesting for my bendy friends.

If you have a connective tissue disorder like hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (hEDS), Hypermobility Spectrum Disorder (HSD), or other related conditions, your collagen is structured differently. Your fascia is more elastic, more stretchy, more... creative in how it responds to load and tension.

This is why we can do party tricks with our joints (IYKYK), but it's also why we tend to experience:

Chronic pain and injury: When your fascia is too stretchy, it can't provide the stability your joints need. Sometimes it feels like the ligaments that are meant to hold bones together like taut ropes are more like worn-out bungee cords.Your muscles have to work overtime to compensate, leading to chronic tension, trigger points, and fatigue.

Proprioceptive challenges: Fascia is absolutely FULL of mechanoreceptors—sensory nerve endings that tell your brain where your body is in space. When your fascia is lax or disorganized, these signals get wonky. This is why many hypermobile folks struggle with coordination, feel clumsy, or have that "floaty" disconnected feeling.

Nervous system dysregulation: Your fascia doesn't just hold your body together—it holds emotional and traumatic patterns too. And when your fascia is already under strain from structural instability, it's even more prone to holding tension as a protective mechanism. This creates a feedback loop between your fascia and your nervous system that can keep you stuck in sympathetic overdrive. Throwback to my blog post on dysautonomia if you’re curious for more info!!!

Systemic inflammation and pain: Fascia can become restricted, dehydrated, and adhered—even fascia that's technically "too stretchy." These restrictions create tension lines through the body that pull on pain-sensitive structures and compress nerves and blood vessels.

fascia is a sensory organ (mind = blown)

Here's something that should be taught in every anatomy class but somehow isn't: fascia has more sensory nerve endings than muscle tissue. Read that again.

Your fascia is literally one of your primary sensory organs. It's constantly sending your brain information about pressure, tension, temperature, chemical changes, and spatial orientation. In fact, fascia contains six times more proprioceptors (position sensors) than muscle.

This is why myofascial release can feel so profound—we're not just releasing tissue restrictions, we're literally changing the sensory input your nervous system receives. We're updating your brain's map of your body.

For hypermobile folks whose fascia is already sending confused signals, this is huge. Skilled fascial work can help retrain these sensory pathways, giving your nervous system clearer, calmer information about where you are and whether you're safe.

myofascial release: working WITH your fascia

So how do we work with fascia, especially fascia that's hypermobile?

Traditional deep tissue massage can actually be counterproductive for bendy bodies. Aggressive pressure on already-lax tissue can create more instability and trigger protective guarding. What we need instead is slow, intelligent, listening touch that helps your fascia reorganize itself. You might be thinking, “heck no, I have deep pain and want deep pressure!!!” But this “no pain, no gain” mindset is extremely harmful to the nervous system and will likely do more harm than good…

This is where myofascial release (MFR) comes in. MFR uses sustained, gentle pressure (think 3-5 minutes minimum in one spot) to engage the fascia's viscoelastic properties. We're not forcing anything—we're waiting for the tissue to soften, hydrate, and unwind on its own timeline.

The magic happens in the ground substance—that gel-like matrix between the collagen fibers. Under sustained gentle pressure, it transitions from a more solid state to a more fluid state (this is called thixotropy if you want to get fancy). As it liquefies, the collagen fibers can reorganize into more functional patterns.

For hypermobile clients, I'm also thinking about:

Fascial tensegrity: Your body is a tensegrity structure—a system of compression and tension in balance. When some areas are too lax, others compensate by getting too tight. MFR helps restore balance to the whole system, not just the painful spot. In bodywork, we think of the fascial system as a “knit sweater”: each loop is completely integrated with every other loop, and when there’s a snag in your sleeve, the whole sweater is affected.

Nervous system pacing: If your nervous system is activated, your fascia won't release. Period. This is why I often combine MFR with craniosacral therapy—we need to help your nervous system feel safe enough to let go. I also love to throw in Neuromuscular therapy to reeducate the nervous system in how it communicates with muscles—more on that in the next blog post J

Hydration and movement: Fascia needs water and movement to stay healthy. I'm constantly encouraging clients to drink more water (yes, really) and to move in gentle, varied ways that load the fascia from multiple angles. I’m pretty much always dancing, and will likely try to encourage you to do the same…

fascia holds your stories

Here's where we wade into territory that makes some practitioners uncomfortable, but I can't not talk about it because it's real:

Fascia holds emotional and traumatic patterns. This isn't woo-woo mysticism—it's neurobiology. When you experience stress or trauma, your nervous system creates a protective response that involves fascial tension. If that threat pattern doesn't fully resolve, the fascia can maintain that holding pattern, sometimes for years.

This is especially relevant for folks with chronic illness or connective tissue disorders, who often have complex medical trauma histories. Your fascia might be holding not just physical restrictions, but also the fear from that doctor who dismissed you, the helplessness from years of unexplained symptoms, the grief of losing abilities you used to have.

When we release fascial restrictions, we're sometimes releasing these stored experiences too. This is why people cry during bodywork, or suddenly remember something, or feel waves of emotion they can't quite name. It's not weird—it's your body finally feeling safe enough to let go of what it's been carrying.

why I love working with hypermobile bodies

If you're hypermobile and reading this thinking "wow, my body is a disaster," please hear me: your fascia isn't broken. It's just wired differently, and it needs different support.

I'm hypermobile too. I GET it—the pain, the instability, the weird sensory stuff, the frustration of a body that feels like it's working against you. And I've found that intelligent fascial work, combined with nervous system regulation, can be absolutely life-changing.

You're not too complicated. You're not unfixable. You just need practitioners who understand how your particular flavor of connective tissue works—and who are willing to slow down, listen, and work WITH your body's wisdom rather than against it.

Your fascia is intelligent. It's doing its best to keep you stable and safe with the tools it has. Our job is to support it, hydrate it, give it clearer sensory input, and help your nervous system trust that it's okay to let go.

the invitation

If you're living in a hypermobile body, dealing with chronic pain, or just curious about the web of tissue that's been supporting you all along—I'd love to work with you. This is my niche, my passion, and honestly, my own lived experience.

Fascia is where structure meets story, where body meets mind, where physical restrictions become opportunities for profound release and reorganization. It's work that requires patience, presence, and a willingness to let your body lead the way.

✨ Stay well, stay curious, and stay connected to the web that holds you. ✨