Recently, Festival Director, Andrew Tanner sat with BYF Featured Presenter and founder of Yoga Tune Up, Jill Miller to talk all things fascia.
In this short clip from “Fantastic Fascia and Spatial Medicine” originally featured on Dregs of Wisdom, Jill shares a interesting study that highlights the amazing connection between fascia and the immune system that science is only beginning to understand.
Key takeaways: Jill Miller on fascia and the immune system
In episode 5 of Dregs of Wisdom, Andrew Tanner sits down with Jill Miller, co-founder of Tune Up Fitness Worldwide and creator of Yoga Tune Up and The Roll Model Method. Asked which health topic would get her click, Jill picked the link between fascia and the immune system. Here are the key points, with timestamps so you can jump straight to them in the full interview.
1. Fascia is the "knitting fabric of your body" (11:50)
Jill describes fascia as "your primary connective tissue," a seam system that supports every cell and laces you together from top to bottom and inside out. It surrounds and interpenetrates your muscles and organs, and when it gets sticky from a scar, an injury or lack of movement, it creates "dams of movement" so muscles don't contract or stretch well.
2. Fascia is one of your biggest sensory organs (13:26)
Fascia is loaded with nerve endings that tell you where your body is in space and also signal pain. Jill says about 250 million sensory nerve endings end in your fascia, compared with about 200 million in your skin. She calls fascial tissue "one of your biggest sensory feedback mechanisms in your body."
3. It's a fibrous and fluid system (15:00)
Fascia isn't only collagen and elastin fibers. It also includes the extracellular matrix, the fluid your cells swim in, and Jill notes that lymphatic channels begin there. That's why learning about fascia means learning about nearly every system of the body.
4. Very light touch helped healing in a mouse study (19:07)
Calling the fascia and immune system link a new frontier, Jill describes a Harvard study she believes was from 2021. In it, injured mouse shin muscles got very light oscillating massage, five minutes twice a day or ten minutes once a day, for two weeks. Compared with untreated mice, the treated mice showed far fewer inflammatory immune cells and waste products, faster wound healing and stronger muscle fibers. Her takeaway is that wounds should be touched "with the lightest amount of touch."
5. Soft is supreme (31:56)
Jill shares how she worked on her own shin injury with a fully deflated soft rubber ball, using pumping and side-to-side shearing to move fluid out of the area. Andrew says rolling on a softer ball gives him more relief than rolling on something hard, and Jill's answer is simple: "soft is supreme."
6. Spatial medicine and the mechano-connective system (57:07)
Jill shares Tom Myers' term "spatial medicine," which works on the physics and mechanics of the body rather than only its chemistry. She also describes a proposal from the 2022 Fascia Research Congress in Montreal to classify fascia and its fluids as a body system of their own: the "mechano connective system."
Want to learn from Jill in person? Jill Miller is on the faculty for the 2027 Berkshire Yoga Festival, June 10–13 at Jiminy Peak in Hancock, Massachusetts. Get your 2027 pass.