Day 3 - Fascia Congress 2012

I arrived 5 minutes late for the third and last day of the congress after staying out late the night before. Hitting the snooze button one two many times was a big mistake as one of the best keynote presentations kicked things off. Dr. Carla Stecco's overview of fascial anatomy was simply top notch.

Side point: Fascial anatomy, I think, is the most important aspect in the world of fascia for trainers, movement therapist and strength coaches. The biochemistry and physiological changes that can occur are interesting, yes, but the anatomy of the fascial network is what gives use people that deal with movement the justification on a structural level for compound, multi-joint movements. From a structural point of view, we don't have any good rational for prioritizing these multi-joint movements if we just look at muscles and bones. In fact, if we just look and muscles and bones we'll conclude that machine based, isolation type exercises are the way to go. And that's exactly what happened in the eighties and nineties. It's why gyms are full of equipment and don't have open space to move. The academic textbooks that detailed the structure of the human body were (and still are) missing one key building material and it has fundamentally sent us down the wrong path. This is all changing now due to the work being done by people like the Stecco family.

Day 2 - Fascia Congress 2012

Day two, the 29th of March 2012, was one of the best days of my life! You see Thursday was the day I got to stand up in front of a packed out room and present my research. Needless to say, this simple fact completely changed my ability to take in the days activities.

I arrived just in time for Rolf Reed's presentation on burns and frostbite. In the interest of honesty, I will admit that I took in about 5% of it. I've no doubt that it was a interesting presentation, but not really in any way relevant to me. The combination of this, and the fact my brain was already running at 100% doing practice runs of my own presentation, resulted in me clapping at the end simply because everyone else was. Sorry Dr. Reed, but I was just too nervous to take anything in.

Day 1 - Fascia Congress 2012

I love having concepts and theories that I haven't quite yet figured out float around the back on my head. Sometimes its more viewpoints that anything else, but I love the feeling of working through, and slowly gaining a understanding of something complex. In the few weeks and even months leading up to the congress I was feeling as though there wasn't much information like this in my head. I was either hearing information that I already knew or information that didn't interest me. It was making me feel stale and stagnant and I didn't like it. I was really hoping that attending this congress would help fill up this depleted spot in my head-space, akin to topping up a glass of water. Needless to say, by the end of the second day I felt like I was standing next to this when all I asked for was to have my glass topped up....