Fascia is essentially your body’s connective tissue.

“Fascia covers our entire body and is made up of many layers that sit underneath our skin,” explains Emma Simarro, a personal trainer and founder of Building Body Confidence. “It acts like a spider’s web around our organs, muscles, bones, blood vessels and nerve fibres, protecting our organs and providing structure to our bodies. The purpose of fascia within the body isn’t yet fully understood, but it is widely agreed that it is the glue that holds our musculoskeletal structure together.”

While fascia is very thin (think of it as cling film around all our body parts), it’s comprised of different layers, with a liquid called hyaluronan in between the layers.

“Fascia provides general and special functions in the body, and is arranged in several ways,” Lancaster University’s Professor Adam Taylor says in The Conversation. “The closest to the surface is the superficial fascia, which is underneath the skin between layers of fat. Then we have the deep fascia that covers the muscles, bones and blood vessels.”

5 fascia stretches to help regulate your nervous system and improve flexibility