Fascia & Forces (Part 1)

The Modern Force Landscape

Over the last two decades, we have witnessed athletes across all sports, and virtually all levels, producing more force, at higher velocities, and more frequently than ever before. Although athletes reaching greater physical peaks is encouraging for the direction of human performance, this hasn’t come without consequence. Largely because of early sport specialization and increasingly myopic training parameters, athletes are not only expressing forces at higher magnitudes and frequencies, but doing so with (generally) less variability, and this is proving to be problematic. We’ve engineered power and precision, but the bandwidth for adaptability is shrinking. What used to be a broad, dynamic system has become increasingly rigid optimized for linear force, not distributed resilience.

Along with these increases in physical capacity, we’ve also seen non-contact soft-tissue injuries surging over the last two decades (see sites in above graphic). The question isn’t just why they’re happening, but more importantly- what role have we played in this and what can we do about it? Modern training strongly biases precision (i.e., “sport specific” loading) while also largely emphasizing contractile tissue development—the muscles and tendons—while neglecting the connective tissue layers that transmit, share, and dissipate those same forces. As this relates here, while precise inputs are required for improving physical capacities, we cannot become neglectful to the necessity that is balancing stress inputs for the sake of health and longevity. Performance is not purely determined by solely by capacities and outputs, but ultimately the ability to tolerate variability and demonstrate physical resiliency. 

We’ve built a generation of athletes who can generate extraordinary force but manage it poorly. Velocity is up, intent is high, precision is narrow—and adaptability is fleeting. The modern performance model rewards output while ignoring efficiency, but the cost is carried by the very tissues responsible for transmitting and distributing load. Muscular systems have been engineered for horsepower, yet the connective web that modulates those forces has lagged. Fascia is often disregarded in performance settings, particularly when discussing forces and physical outputs. We need to recognize that despite being somewhat intangible, it plays an undeniably critical role as the body’s mechanical interface—the medium through which forces are directed, delayed, and dispersed. When that interface loses its ability to tune, the entire system loses tempo.

The Human Resonance System

So where does fascia specifically sit within this conversation of precision and balance? Well, the easiest way I can illustrate this by viewing fascia as our biological resonance system is the integrative link between these dichotomies of health and performance. Fascia sits at the center of this imbalance, and it speaks directly to how forces are experienced throughout the body. As a collective integrated connective tissue system, fascia serves as the mechanical interfacethrough which the body manages energy. It’s the invisible governor that attunes how force is produced, transmitted, and attenuated.

If musculotendinous structures are the engine, myofascial structures are the suspension. Think of our fascial system- an epimuscular network of connective tissue, as attuning harmony and coordination of movement. Chiefly, fascia strongly influences whether forces facilitate movement or feed breakdown. Every tissue has a natural resonance frequency—its preferred rhythm of oscillation based on density, stiffness, and hydration (5,9,10). When the frequencies of muscle, fascia, tendon, and bone align, energy flows cleanly through the system. When they diverge, forces amplify instead of propagating; vibration turns into friction, and efficiency gives way to irritation. This is the human resonance system—a dynamic frequency network where fascia acts as a mechanical regulator. It accentuates what’s efficient and attenuates what’s excessive. Mechanically:

• Too much stiffness: force travels rapidly but loses diffusion—power without control.

• Too little stiffness: force dissipates prematurely—energy leaks without effect.

• Optimal resonance: force oscillates through the entire system—efficient, coordinated, sustainable.

Fascia governs this tuning through its viscoelastic, rate-dependent nature (6, 9). It tightens under speed, softens with time, and constantly recalibrates based on input. Schleip (2023) described this as mechanical intelligence—a living network adjusting in microseconds to keep energy coherent. Healthy fascia doesn’t simply connect, it coordinates intrinsic and extrinsic forces throughout the body. When that resonance fades, so does the athlete’s ability to distribute stress, and the margin for error collapses. Although largely intangible for most coaches and practitioners, we need to understand resonance isn’t supplemental to, but deeply integrated with mechanics.

Fascia is rate sensitive, meaning at high velocities, it behaves like an elastic transmitter—stiff, quick, reactive (this speaks to the viscous properties of the tissue). Under sustained or eccentric load, it exhibits thixotropic behavior: viscosity decreases with motion, improving glide and promoting reorganization of the collagen lattice (3, 6, 9). This is why slow, deliberate loading is essential for fascial health. It drives tissue remodeling, enhances eccentric capacity, and refines the ability to attenuate force efficiently.

So yes, rapid movement teaches fascia to recoil, but slow tension teaches it to reorganize. Both are vital expressions of mechanical intelligence. The hierarchy of stiffness defines the flow of risk. The tissue that adapts fastest, or becomes the dominant conduit for load, often carries the greatest vulnerability when the system detunes. What appears “strong” may simply be the least compliant path left available. It’s not the force that breaks the system, it’s the rate of force applied in conjunction with where the force goes when balance is lost. Resonance defines the quality of our force experience; stiffness dictates its direction. Together, they determine how an athlete stores, steers, and sustains energy.

Force Follows Stiffness

Ultimately forces are transmitted throughout the body by way of the stiffest available pathways. Similar to how electricity flows through a conduit, the stiffest tissue- or segments of tissue- will be the predominant conductors for mechanical force transmission. Although myofascial tissue, comparatively, is much more compliant than myotendinous tissue, the regional tensioning of epimuscular connective tissue has direct influence on the stiffness properties of the adjacent musculotendinous structures. This speaks to why localized motor impairment or acute pain/sensitivity is typically associated with fascial stiffness. When fascia becomes overly stiff (i.e., increased viscosity, adhesive) the compliance of the tissue becomes compromised. This creates a resultant undue stress placed on the adjacent musculotendinous structures due to interference with its length-tension relationships. Collectively this incoherence of force transmission impairs motor output and promotes compensatory strategies or pathways.

Thus, myofascial structures are inextricably significant for how forces are transmitted throughout the body. This isn’t philosophy, it’s physics, and something renowned researcher Keith Baar has spoken about for decades (1, 3, 7). Force travels through the path of least resistance, which in this context is the greatest rigidity. Whether that stiffness arises from collagen cross-linking, neural tone, or accumulated scarring, it dictates the route of stress. When one region becomes disproportionately rigid, the system reorganizes around it. Eventually, the tissue that stiffens first, or most frequently, becomes the one that is most inclined to fail due to load imbalances.

The Fascial Force Network

Force does not move linearly through the body. It spirals, shears, and radiates across an interconnected web of tissues (5, 8, 10). This reinforces points above that the myofascial tissue is not superior or supplemental to other connective tissue structures. The absolute key point to understand is that each connective tissue system/structure plays a specific role in the body, and the myofascial system just happens to be the one we’ve understood and appreciated the least.

• Myotendinous pathways transmit force directly to bone.

• Myofascial pathways distribute tension laterally between fibers and compartments.

• Epimuscular connections bridge across muscles and joints, allowing energy to traverse the entire limb.

Finni (2023), among others, have proposed that up to 40 percent of muscular force moves through these non-tendinous routes. When these gliding layers densify, lose hydration, or become mechanically “sticky,” the network loses its diffusion capacity. Stress concentrates; variability disappears; resilience fades. Fascia operates less like a spring and more like a dynamic filter—a living material that smooths, redirects, and times the release of mechanical energy. When it’s supple and coherent, movement looks effortless. When it’s chaotic or densified, motion becomes noisy and inefficient. Performance isn’t just about creating force; it’s about conducting it.

And here may be the operative point of this article- that since 2000 we have experienced a clear disproportionate rise in soft tissue injuries in sport, affecting most sports across all levels. This is a multifactorial consequence of modernized training applications and logistics of sport, frankly many variables beyond the scope of this need to be considered. But to put it simply, my theory is that we have outpaced our ability to improve human physical capacities relative to our ability to manage them- and THIS is where the fascia points are unmistakably significant. We don’t need to shy away from high force loading or high velocity exposures, we need to recalibrate the demand for appropriate balance within the performance setting. Keeping athletes healthy doesn’t command taking more time off or being more precautious to load exposures, it’s to measurably and precisely understand how and when athletes should be loaded, not if at all.

Strength is a construct, a variable expression more so than a single outcome measure. We’ve reached a threshold where force production outpaces force management and it’s showing up in every injury report in sport. We have been misled by overweighting the ‘measurables’ of performance in an effort to validate our work as performance specialists. And the cost of this has become athletes who can produce tremendous forces, but at the expense of availability and longevity. An athlete’s strength is only as valuable as their ability to express it- namely within the context of sport. When athletes are tremendously robust in specific/controlled force expressions but lack the dexterity to demonstrate that strength in variable or uncontrolled settings we are overtly missing the plot. This is the major pitfall to being too rigid in our training- we become negligent to the significance of movement bandwidth. This internal disharmony in our contractile/connective tissue development, in my opinion, is a primary driver for the unmitigated rise in non-contact soft tissue injuries. Taking a more myofascially driven approach to training can provide a stopgap to this growing disproportion. 

{A practical follow-up to this article will be posted soon}

References

1. Baar, K. (2017). Training and nutrition to improve connective tissue quality: Implications for injury prevention and rehabilitation. Sports Medicine, 47(1 Suppl 1), 49–60. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-017-0696-3

2. Benjamin, M., & Ralphs, J. R. (2008). The structure of tendons and ligaments. Journal of Anatomy, 212(3), 211–228. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7580.2008.00864.x

3. Baar, K., & Kjaer, M. (2016). The structure–function relationship of muscle and tendon. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, 26(4), 541–553. https://doi.org/10.1111/sms.12603

4. Brophy, R. H., Chehab, E. L., et al. (2022). Injury trends in professional baseball: A 20-year review of the Major League Baseball disabled list. American Journal of Sports Medicine, 50(2), 450–459. https://doi.org/10.1177/03635465211041560

5. Fung, Y. C. (1993). Biomechanics: Mechanical Properties of Living Tissues (2nd ed.). Springer-Verlag.

6. Schleip, R., Müller, D. G., & Yucesoy, C. A. (2023). Fascial plasticity and mechanical intelligence of the human body. Journal of Bodywork & Movement Therapies, 27(1), 17–26. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbmt.2023.01.004

7. Finni, T., et al. (2023). Force transmission and interactions between synergist muscles. Journal of Biomechanics, 155, 111606. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbiomech.2023.111606

8. Stecco, C., Day, J. A., & Pirri, C. (2014). Functional atlas of the human fascial system. Journal of Bodywork & Movement Therapies, 18(3), 432–450. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbmt.2014.01.003

9. Yahia, L. H., Proulx, R., & Boucher, P. (1993). Viscoelastic properties of the human fascia lata and their clinical implications. Journal of Biomedical Engineering, 15(5), 425–429. https://doi.org/10.1016/0141-5425(93)90013-E

10. Wren, T. A. L., et al. (2003). Mechanical properties of the human Achilles tendon. Clinical Biomechanics, 18(6), 491–498. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0268-0033(03)00072-6