What is the 'Deep Front Line'?

Hi I’m Elly Lindsay TMJ and Chronic Pain Specialist and today I wanted to talk about some anatomy of the body that I hope you will find really useful

Before we start, below is a link for you to grab a free guide I put together for you. It is called 5 Simple Steps to Prevent Jaw Pain and Headaches.

So today we are going to talk about quite a complex subject.

Fascia

In my past we have spoken about fascia. If you haven’t read those posts or you have forgot - fascia is connective tissue. It’s a web that holds everything in place and everything together. So there is fascia around our organs, giving them shape and definition. There is fascia around our bones, in fact our bones in some ways are fascia but that's a different story maybe we’ll talk about another time.

So there’s fascia around muscles. And through muscle fibres. And ligaments and tendons and everything.

And what many modern day thinkers in science and anatomy have discovered through new ways to dissect is that this fascia is so important to our biology.

Chains of Fascia!

In a groundbreaking book 'Anatomy Chains' the author Tom Myers divides up the body into chains of fascia, so long chains that he noticed during his dissections that run up and down and through the body, connecting specific muscles and structures.

So, based on his work we are going to look at what Tom Myers calls the Deep Front Line. I have chosen this one as it is relevant in jaw pain, although it is not the only chain that is relevant. We can talk about other ones at a later date. 

I hope so far that this makes sense. This idea that there are chains of connective tissue that run through our body connecting ligaments, tendons and muscles. If not then when we specifically look at an example then I hope it will fall into place.

So above is a picture from Tom Myers academic book Anatomy Trains. All of the blue in that picture are muscles, different muscles that run through the front of the body. You may be able to see why I chose this, as this line includes the two main muscles of the jaw. 

See how through this modelling we can see that those muscles, starting on the face is connected to those muscles shown in blue in the neck, and the ribs and diaphragm and then these hip muscles going into the inner thigh.

Pain in the Neck! 

It goes a long way to explain why pain in the neck can go alongside jaw pain. Think about if one of these muscles here is pulling and that then creates pulling in the jaw and this then goes onto create dysfunction in the joint itself and problems with the muscles in the jaw. If the fascia is restricted through overuse from posture problems, 

And it goes some way to explain how the neck is so relevant in jaw problems! 

Hopefully this makes some sense to you, do let me know.

And also grab my free guide below 5 Simple Steps to Prevent Jaw Pain and Headaches. And get in touch and let me know what you’ve implemented and how it’s going for you.