Gravity Fx Fitness

Skilled deep tissue massage can be very effective at relieving or reducing chronic pain.  It can also help you reduce the risk of overuse injuries.

In the previous article, I talked about my first massage and how effective it was for removing excess tension.  Excess tension in the muscles and restrictions in the fascia (connective tissue) can create pain.

You can have too much tension from overuse and you can have a buildup of scar tissue from an injury.  This is where deep tissue massage can be very effective.

In my opinion, using some form of moist heat first will make the tissues more pliable and easier to work on.  This may save the client from greater pain/discomfort and it definitely is easier on the hands of the therapist.

In one instance, I worked on a 77 year old woman who had torn her rotator cuff two years prior.  She had to take care of her husband and couldn’t take time off to have surgery.

So she had almost no movement in that shoulder and basically, almost no function with that arm.  In order to drive, she had to take her other arm and lift her bad arm to grab the steering wheel.

She would joke to the technicians that I was beating her up, but she knew it was helping and I didn’t create any more discomfort than necessary.

After ten 30 minute sessions of massage and stretching, she had about double the range of motion and could now swing a golf club again, for which she was very happy.

She could have used some strengthening exercises too, but she was coming in to the clinic from quite a distance and was satisfied with her progress.  I believe strongly in corrective exercise, but have seen times where people got better results with skilled soft tissue therapy and chiropractic, than they did in physical therapy.

My massage mentor worked with college teams for a while and then “graduated” to the pro ranks when one of his athletes turned pro.  One of his football clients set the NFL record for most carries in a season, while receiving massage twice a week, a record that has since been broken.

Active Release Technique (ART) has been touted as very beneficial for releasing scar tissue in a number of athletes and weight lifters.  It can be very painful to receive, but is reported to get fast results.

As one prominent lecturer has said, “not all practitioners are equally skilled,” which is probably true of all manual therapists.  I think it takes quite a bit of work to become proficient with ART.

Check out my article about self massage that you can do before your workouts.

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