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Seminar Preview: Fascial Stretch Therapy™

Insight into the upcoming PICP seminar on this unique and highly effective stretching system

In the spring of 1997 Ann Frederick attended a seminar on stretching and flexibility training by Charles Poliquin. Charles was so impressed with Ann’s knowledge of stretching and her skills that he immediately began sending clients to her. Years later Charles met Ann’s husband, Chris Frederick, and was impressed by Chris’s skills in quickly diagnosing and successfully treating chronic myofascial imbalances that inhibit both flexibility and strength. Charles kept in touch with the Fredericks, and 10 years ago they all came up with the idea that Charles should sponsor a stretching seminar. Finally, as of next February that idea will become a reality.

The seminar is Fascial Stretch Therapy™: Level I Certification, and it will be held over five days, February 1-5, at the Poliquin Strength Institute in East Greenwich, Rhode Island. Both Ann and Chris will be teaching the classes, and the focus is on practical application of their unique training system. Here are a few of the subjects the seminar will cover:

• Posture assessment and pattern recognition
• Lower body evaluation
• Lower body assisted stretching
• Upper body evaluation
• Upper body assisted stretching

In addition to cutting-edge research about fascial anatomy, physiology and kinesiology, as well as specific practical skills and protocols in fascial stretching, there are many bonuses included with the course. Participants will receive four Fascial Stretch Therapy™ table belts, an extensive course manual and DVD set, a special book on how to grow your business using the skills you learn, permission to use the Stretch to Win® Certified logo, and a listing on the Stretch Therapist Locator section of the Stretch to Win website.

As for their backgrounds, Chris has a degree in manual orthopedic physical therapy from Hunter College, City University of New York. Ann Frederick has a master’s degree (her thesis demonstrated the superiority of Fascial Stretch Therapy over conventional methods), and over the past 35 years she has been a student, performer and teacher of dance. In 1995 Ann was hired as the first Stretching and Flexibility Specialist for an Olympic team, US men’s wrestling. By the time the Games were over in 1996, Ann had worked with the entire team for almost a year and they had made their mark in history by not only winning a record number of gold medals but also beating the world champion Russians for the first time. Ann and Chris opened their Stretch to Win Center in Tempe, Arizona, in1996, and their clients have included numerous Olympians and athletes in the NFL, MLB and NHL, as well as top performing CEOs, business leaders and other professionals.

Chris says this certification is designed for “anybody who is interested in increasing performance and improving training recovery in athletes and all clients, or who is involved in helping clients rehabilitate from injuries.” Among the professionals who have benefited from this program are personal trainers, strength and conditioning coaches, physical therapists, athletic trainers, chiropractors, massage therapists and other body workers. He adds that the major prerequisite is to have a good working knowledge of anatomy and kinesiology. If you feel you need to brush up on this subject before attending the course, Chris highly recommends studying the book Anatomy Trains. Written by Thomas W. Myers, Anatomy Trains shows how all the muscles are structurally and functionally linked through the fascia.

Chris explains that fascia is a general term that covers all the connective tissue in the body except blood and bone. Fascia is a soft tissue of varying biomechanical and biochemical properties, depending on its location; and it connects, supports and shapes every muscle, organ, blood vessel and nerve. It envelopes and intertwines with the muscle fibers and even penetrates the single cell of the muscle, the sarcomere. Fascia therefore plays a very important role not only in determining the range of motion of each joint but also in the physiology and kinesiology of all muscles. In effect, if the fascia is not in an optimal state of structural and functional balance (e.g., if there is an improper ratio of static and dynamic tension and compression forces acting within the fascial system), then, Chris says, an athlete will never achieve optimal and sustainable levels of flexibility, strength or power.

The Stretch to Win® Difference
When you think of stretching, most likely you think of the stretching method made popular by Bob Anderson. The first copy of his book Stretching was published 30 years ago, and since then over three million copies have been sold in the US and it has been reprinted in 24 languages. It relies on the static stretch method, where you hold a stretch for about 15-30 seconds and then repeat several times. Chris says that although this type of stretching “serves a purpose,” the field has evolved so that one method is not enough; he also says he never stops learning. “In our clinic, we have seen thousands of clients over the past 14 years, and we still learn something every single day. In fact, we just came from a fascia research conference in Amsterdam, and new research has come out that will change the study of anatomy, physiology and kinesiology as we know it. We feel we are on the cutting edge of this knowledge, and we will introduce this knowledge into the classroom.”

The method taught by Ann and Chris Frederick looks closely at posture and a related field called pattern recognition. Because they have seen so many clients in their practice, they can recognize patterns of posture that represent muscle imbalance. “For example,” says Chris, “in our society of workers sitting down all day, we commonly see the same cascading pattern of forward head, forward shoulders, tilted rib cages, increased lordosis – lordosis is an excessive arch in the lower back – and pronated feet.” Likewise, with athletes who focus on specific muscles, some patterns are common. A swimmer, for example, may often have a great streamlined posture in the water but in standing will often lean on their anterior hip ligaments and have a swayback.

One of the great aspects of their method of stretching is that it is complementary to other methods of treatment. In explaining, Chris used the example of Active Release Techniques®, a popular soft-tissue treatment developed by Dr. Michael Leahy. “ART doesn’t take a completely global approach to the human body. It looks at a particular problem and has a specific protocol to treat that problem – they have hundreds of protocols.” Thus, Chris says, if an ART practitioner sees a client with biceps tendonitis, they might use the appropriate protocol to release the scar tissue in the biceps but may not look at how the biceps relates to the client’s round shoulders and forward head posture. “So while ART is great and it’s good for certain things, they are not looking at the whole picture. We teach a more global approach, and we have a lot of testimonials from ART people that our program was the missing link in their treatment program.”

Asked about how the treatment differs for a typical client compared to an athlete, Chris explains, “People who are deconditioned obviously need a much more global approach. People get shorter as they go through life due to the accumulation of compressive forces over time, overtraining and the aging process. What makes our approach unique is that we identify, through pattern recognition, strength and flexibility tests, those areas that are under compression and we decompress those areas with our hands using techniques such as traction.” Chris says that athletes who are in shape are most likely going to have muscle imbalances that are specific to the sport and their position. “For instance, football players often have tight hip flexors, but cornerbacks, with all the back-pedaling they do, often get inhibition weakness of the glutes from tight hip flexors, which then puts extra strain on the hamstrings, which always feel tight.”

You might think that some flexible athletes, such as gymnasts and martial artists, would not need stretching by a Certified Fascial Stretch Therapist, but this is not the case. “As a matter of fact, my background and my wife’s background are that we were both gymnasts and professional dancers, and from that experience I was able to train a lot of these athletes.” One mistake many flexible athletes make, says Chris, is to practice static stretching before they train. “Studies have shown that static stretching before a vertical jump can decrease power, so when a gymnast finishes stretching and begins their workout, they are in a weakened state. The same with the dancers. So what I’ve done is given them a dynamic stretching warm-up before they train, which increases their range of motion but doesn’t weaken the muscles.”

In addition to helping clients achieve their goals of optimal health or athletic performance, those who become certified with Fascial Stretch Therapy have the opportunity for great financial benefits. “The testimonials from those who attend my programs are overwhelming,” says Chris. “The classes were the missing link in their business, and it has changed their practice because this was something they couldn’t offer before. It’s an amazing cash revenue generator!”