You’ve probably heard the phrase “Yin yoga gets into the fascia more”. The question is, is it true? And if it is, how does that happen?
When we stretch (and move) we typically describe two generalized barriers to that movement, as in, we consider there to be 2 things that contribute to you feeling that moment of “I can’t stretch any further”.
- -> The nervous system
- -> The fascial tissues
The nervous system is the governor of all things in your body. In a flexibility test, it’s usually the first “barrier” to moving further. It’s the first “that’s enough” feeling when you stretch passively and statically. Your stretch reflex starts to signal “no further” when you get to the point where it’s most familiar with being your maximum range.
After you’ve been at that point for a while though, you’ll usually feel a “release” of some kind and you’ll be able to move a little further. That’s also the nervous system and most likely the response of the golgi-tendon organ reflex.
You keep going into your stretch then and at a certain point you’ll feel a second “stop now” point. Sometimes that will feel a little bit more like your final possibility for flexibility (for today), instead of something you can settle into further.
It’s at this point we’re likely to be also limited in our flexibility by the arrangement of bonds within the fascial tissues (in addition to the continued input from the nervous system). Fascia is both bound by really strong bonds called covalent bonds that we can’t break with stretching or manual therapy, AND weaker bonds that can be encouraged to reorganize through time under tension.
Time under tension is something we get when we go passed that first flexibility limitation and stay at the second one for some time. It also just happens to be what is done in a lot of yin-style yoga practices.
And so, based on this description and working understanding of the process of stretching in this way, it’s entirely possible that yin-style practices can focus a little more “work” in the fascial tissues.
Of course, this has yet to be totally confirmed through study. And yet, it seems likely to be what’s happening and the order of events for things like static passive stretching.
Update:
New research is suggesting has indeed now measured this!
Specifically in the context of static, passive stretches. And also importantly there needs to be TIME under tension. So long holds in that static, passive stretch.
What this study has found is that static, passive stretches held for 5 minutes produce a measurable decrease in deep fascia stiffness, and that this is correlated to range of motion increases.
Of course, this effect occurs at the same time as neural adaptations and also local muscle and vascular changes – so don’t think it’s the only thing happening – but for the first time we can actually measure deep fascial adaptation in the SHORT term as well as what we understand about it in the long term.
When we do this type of thing repeatedly then, we’re likely to be training both the nervous system AND the fascial tissues to allow us to move through incrementally more range of motion. In essence, flexibility training (at least one of the ways to do it).
An extra note here is that your first series of weeks in any flexibility regimen are likely to be largely nervous system changes, and then after that (with consistency) it’s likely to be then coupled with the fascial tissue changes/reorganization. So fascial tissue adaptation seemingly takes more time and consistency than nervous system adaptation.
If you liked this post, you might also be interested in “Fascial stretch – what is it?”.
Last Updated: Jun 30, 2024
This one was a great read, and I’m loving the update too. Yin came so challenging to me for a while- mainly for the slowing down part- but when I researched more and understood the nervous system support and adaptations; I was very much hooked. Then came my interest in bodywork and healing touch. Through the training, I experienced a significant nervous system response, especially where I have fascial tissue that is very dense such as my upper traps and around my shoulders.
I was wanting to be able to explain the experience more to new clients, and also to students that I teach flexibility and mobility classes to, and I always suggested Yin- yoga to them for these reasons. This article was super informative! Thank you Drew