Chapter 130: Powerful New Panel Feature

Seeing the notification pop up on the panel, Chen Jue felt that the intense, sharp pain he had just endured was completely worth it.

‘Getting to farm Attributes just by lying down? Isn’t that even better than training?’

The massage therapist had warned him that the fascia scraper, like other recovery massages, couldn’t be used daily. Over-scraping could worsen muscle inflammation. If not for that warning, he would have wanted to come to this recovery center for this experience every single day.

“This is true pain and pleasure, all at once!”

“I wonder what genius invented this fascia scraper.” Chen Jue had finished his massage and stretching, and a fine layer of sweat had already beaded on his skin.

Seeing this, the massage therapist thoughtfully brought over a clean towel to wipe Chen Jue down, picking up the conversational thread. “Who else could have invented it? Our Huaxia ancestors, of course!”

“Ever seen a scraping board? That’s the predecessor to this stainless steel fascia scraper! Even the Yongle Encyclopedia recorded the benefits of iron scraping boards for stretching the fascia.”

“A few years ago, a lot of people blindly believed in foreign methods. It’s only in recent years that we’ve started to regain our cultural confidence. As soon as the sports games start, all the foreigners come to us for scraping, Acupuncture, and cupping.”

The massage therapist was quite talkative and shared some amusing stories about things he’d seen at the recovery center.

Chen Jue listened with growing curiosity. He never expected that coming in for a massage and stretch would be connected to traditional culture.

…

After the stretching and basic massage, the middle-aged therapist gave Chen Jue a bone-setting adjustment.

After feeling the protrusion on Chen Jue’s lumbar spine, the massage therapist tsk-tsked. “You must have spent a lot of time sitting in the past, right? You have a seriously herniated lumbar disc!”

“With a herniation this bad, you must have been sitting like this for several years at least.”

Hearing the massage therapist’s words, Chen Jue was rather surprised. “Several years? I’ve been sitting like this from my school days until I was almost 30!”

‘Could it be that my recent exercise and the points I added to my Constitution have eased the pressure on my lumbar spine?’

Just as Chen Jue was secretly speculating, the massage therapist’s deft hands pressed and twisted his back with a few loud CRACKS.

A tingling numbness spread through his spine, and a notification even popped up on his panel:

——————

[Ding~]

[A successful joint misalignment correction has been completed. Your spinal curvature and herniated lumbar disc have slightly improved.]

[Constitution Attribute +0.01]

——————

“That feels great!”

Chen Jue let out a long breath, feeling refreshed and invigorated.

“Herniated lumbar discs used to be a problem only old people had.”

“Nowadays, all the young people work in offices. Nobody exercises anymore. Their physical fitness is worse than the old folks in the park,” the massage therapist joked as he continued the adjustment.

As the saying goes, crude but true. Listening to the joke, Chen Jue felt there was a lot of truth to it.

From an evolutionary perspective, the last one or two generations are probably the first in human history who can support themselves just by sitting down. Over time, it’s only natural for physical fitness to decline.

“Master Liu, are there any methods to improve a herniated lumbar disc?” Chen Jue glanced back at the massage therapist’s name tag. He felt this therapist was highly skilled.

Apparently, according to the resume introduction outside the massage room, this Master Liu had a bachelor’s degree in sports medicine. He also had over a decade of professional experience. In terms of expertise, he was easily on par with an ordinary university professor.

Don’t look down on a job like massage, which might seem unglamorous. His hourly rate started at several hundred, making it a bona fide high-paying profession.

“For you young people who want to fix your herniated discs and pot bellies, besides strengthening your core muscles, you can also try the four-point static squat. Keep your head, shoulders, waist, and tailbone in a straight line, and do a half-squat with your back straight.”

“Start by squatting against a wall. After you get used to it, try squatting without the wall. The problem will naturally improve.” As he adjusted Chen Jue’s bones, Master Liu explained the common treatment methods for lumbar issues used at the recovery center, and he also grabbed a brochure for Chen Jue to look through.

“A four-point static squat?”

“Isn’t this exactly the same as the Horse Stance and Tai Chi Pile Skills?” Looking at the illustrated explanation in the brochure, Chen Jue suddenly felt that the things passed down from his ancestors weren’t as mysterious as he had imagined.

It wasn’t just the modern fascia scraper being an extension of the scraping board; even this four-point static squat, developed for lumbar issues, showcased the wisdom of their predecessors.

“No wonder my lumbar problem has improved so much!”

‘So it turns out my Horse Stance and Pile Skills practice have been gradually correcting it without me even realizing,’ Chen Jue thought to himself, glancing at the section in the brochure about human fascia.

According to modern medical research, human fascia is divided into three types: superficial fascia, deep fascia, and visceral fascia. It accounts for 20% of the weight of all the organs in the human body.

The function of fascia is to constrain and protect musculoskeletal tissues such as joints, muscles, and inner organs.

Visually, fascia resembles a spiderweb that envelops the entire body. (Note: See the bonus chapter for a detailed diagram.)

When ordinary people don’t exercise for a long time, their bodies feel rusty. It hurts when they stretch, and they get tired easily when they move. Their subconscious desire for a massage stems mainly from the fact that the fascia in their bodies has developed adhesions.

According to scientific research, after just three weeks of inactivity, the originally neat and orderly fascia becomes a tangled mess, directly forming fascial adhesions. This is the origin of the so-called saying, “an idle body grows stiff.”

As for the cause of these fascial adhesions, the fascia produces special cells called fibroblasts. These cells multiply and squirm around like slugs, leaving behind “slimy trails” on the muscle surface. These trails fill the space that should allow the muscles to slide past each other, essentially packing the area with superglue. This causes the freely sliding muscles to lose their flexibility.