VOGUE + THE floss

The Key To Better Mobility, Stability, and Strength? It May Be In Your Fascia

BY Chloe Schama 9/27/24

…And at the sunny Sky Ting yoga studio in Manhattan’s NoHo, Bonnie Crotzer holds classes she calls Fascia Flossing—“turn your tissue from plastic to elastic,” the tagline reads.

“We’re going to use resistance, so dial it up or dial it down,” Crotzer whispers to me before the class I’m attending begins, and I look around in mild panic. Did I miss the memo? Where are the elastic bands? What Crotzer means is that we will be contracting our muscles while we stretch them. The technical term is “eccentric contraction”—think of the sensation at the bottom of a bicep curl, when your muscle is working but also elongated. “When you’re extending the muscle while contracting it, you both passively extend the fascia, but also your muscle is contributing to the stretch,” says Langevin. Crotzer guides us through a sequence that feels, if not revolutionary to my yoga-accustomed body, limbering, loosening, and quite pleasant.