The sun’s just rising over Ulm, where I have come for the Fascial Dissection Congress. Robert Schleip has wisely kept it a small group of participants. My own presentations have been at the beginning, so I have not had much chance to see others, as we are in parallel sessions most of the time, but I did want to blog a little about Robert himself.
What an interesting character! When I first met him, he was in the flowing orange robes of a sadhu, but now he is one of the more respected researchers and hubs of fascial research. And yet he doesn’t lose his common touch, or enthusiasm. As we came in we handed us gummy worms, which we stretched and watched recover (they ‘creep’ like ligaments, being gelatin (near as dammit to collagen) and sugar, kinda like our fascia.
We are the long-legged primates – the endurance runners of the ape family, and this brought on a discussion of oscillation and the elastic properties of fascia – how little energy it takes to keep an oscillating spring in motion like a yo-yo. This led to a discussion of BMW’s shock absorbers, and how our bodies are way ahead of them.
He talked about the Viking body – high myofibroblast counts in the tissue, high stability, low mobility – vs the acrobat – low MFB counts, high mobility, problematic stability – as two different body types – don’t send the Viking to yoga class, don’t assign the acrobat heavy weights.
Fascinating: one of his clients who is a professional weightlifter has learned to vigorously scrub his skin before a meet, and the increased proprioception of the superficial fascial layers thus provided gives him the edge he needs to successfully lift more in the meet. Keeps him tuned and maximally sensitive to small shifts that would otherwise result in a drop or injury.
Tags: Fascial research, Schleip