Your vast inter-connected collagen network

Your musculoskeletal system can be viewed as a vast inter-connected network of collagen reinforcement with each tissue possessing some specialised qualities for its specialised functions. Collagen pervades the entire length, breadth and depth of your muscle, cartilage and bone; specialised muscle cells generate power, cartilage molecules are ideal shock absorbers and bone has a calcium “cement” that resists the tremendous forces you place through it.

If you were to remove all your muscle cells for example and leave behind your connective tissue it would look something like a loofa. As a muscle reaches closer to a bone, your collagen becomes increasingly dense, forming a cord almost completely made up of collagen, called tendon. Your tendon imperceptivity merges with your bones collagen network. If you were to remove all the calcium cement from your bone and leave behind its collagen network it would also look somewhat like a loofa.

The quality, density, bonding and the arrangement of collagen gives your load bearing tissues their tensile strength - their ability to withstand the forces you place them under- and these forces generated by your voluntary skeletal muscle predominantly determines your collagen network’s architecture and quality.

Fascia, which is 97% collagen, is an extensive network of fibrous tissue that surrounds, envelops and extends throughout your muscle. It envelops individual muscle fibres, bundles of muscle fibres, and the entire muscle belly. In fact the fascia network is continuous, joining muscle to muscle and thickening at the end of your muscles to become tendon, which then seamlessly blends into your bone’s collagen network.

The quality, density, bonding and the arrangement of your collagen network highly determines the strength of your muscles and bones and their ability to withstand the forces you place on them without breaking.