BIOMECHANICAL AND VISCOELASTIC PROPERTIES OF THORACOLUMBAR REGION AFTER ADAPTED <EM>FASCIAL FITNESS PROTOCOL</EM>: A SERIES OF CASES

G.M. Santos¹, M.d.S. Amorim², L. Sinhorim³, M.E. Ortiz⁴, F.C. da Silva⁵, M.E.D. França², R. Schleip⁶

¹Santa Catarina State University, College of Health and Sport Science, Physical Therapy Graduate Program, Human Movement Sciences Graduate Program, Posture and Balance Lab, Florianopolis, Brazil, ²Santa Catarina State University, College of Health and Sport Science, Human Movement Sciences Graduate Program, Posture and Balance Lab, Florianopolis, Brazil, ³Santa Catarina State University, Posture and Balance Lab, Florianopolis, Brazil, ⁴University of Southern Santa Catarina, Palhoça, Brazil, ⁵Cirklo, Porto Alegre, Brazil, ⁶Conservative and Rehabilitative Orthopaedics - Technical University of Munich, Sport and Health Sciences, Munich, Germany

Background: Changes in the mechanical properties of fascia, such as stiffness and elasticity may restrict muscle extensibility. Fascia can be defined as a viscoelastic tissue, belonging to connective tissue, which permeates the entire human body, involves, sustains, protects, connects and divides the muscular, skeletal and visceral components of the body. Fascia system focused active interventions such as fascial fitness, proposes to stimulate fluid shear changes in the ground substance, fibroblasts and the neural receptors present in this tissue, in order to modulate them.

Purpose: To investigate the immediate effect of changes in the biomechanical and viscoelastic properties of the thoracolumbar region after a session of an adapted fascial fitness protocol.

Methods: This is a case report following the recommendations of the STrengthening the Reporting of OBservational studies in Epidemiology (STROBE). Eight volunteers underwent biomechanical and viscoelastic properties evaluation using MyotonPro®. Frequency (Hz), Stiffiness (N/m), Decrement [log], Relaxation time (ms) and Creep (De) were assessed pre and post protocol application. An intervention based on an adapted fascial fitness protocol was applied to study participants. The adapted protocol followed two sets of 40 seconds on each side of the thoracolumbar region (right and left) of fascia-oriented exercise approach.

Results: The analysis was carried out over 8 person (4 female; 4 male). with a mean age of 25.50 (SD=13.10 years), mass of 72.50 (SD=11.25 kg), height of 174.00 (SD=10.28 cm) and BMI of 23.80 (SD=1.16 Kg/^m2). The findings showed that logarithmic decrement decreased from 1.19 to 1.09 (p=0.01) and mechanical stress relaxation time increased from 21.72ms to 24.45ms (p=0.03) after protocol intervention.

Conclusions: The protocol used in the present study changed biomechanical and viscoelastic properties of the thoracolumbar region, with an increase in elasticity and relaxation.

Implications: The findings suggest that fascial fitness protocol has immediate effect on biomechanical and viscoelastic properties and could be powerful in the treatment of pain or mobility issues on thoracolombar region. However, additional research is needed to investigate if this change in elasticity and relaxation is associated with fascial fitness intervention.

Funding acknowledgements: This research received grant from Santa Catarina Research Foundation -
FAPESC (2021TR995).

Keywords:
fascia
exercise
stiffness

Topics:
Musculoskeletal
Orthopaedics
Musculoskeletal: spine

Did this work require ethics approval? Yes

Institution: Santa Catarina State University

Committee: Research Ethics Committee of the Santa Catarina State University

Ethics number: 2630855