Gravity Fx Fitness

Is pain a necessary evil or can deep tissue massage be unnecessarily painful?  As a massage therapist and former instructor of massage therapy, I’ve had some interesting discussions on this matter.

Recently I was talking with a fellow therapist who uses deep pressure with her massages and usually people tell her that the results are much different than light, relaxing massage.  Sometimes, the clients are amazed at how it can make them feel.

The pressure that I use and that I enjoy, is firm to deep pressure.  Sometimes this can be uncomfortable to receive and often, a little painful for a brief moment.  I’ve had some pretty good results, though, and don’t have much problem putting up with some momentary discomfort in exchange for lasting results.

I’ve also had some students tell me that they have come across people that have had bad results with deep tissue work and endured too much pain.

So this made me think about this little dilemma and I think I have some answers.  One, the therapist may have used very deep pressure without adequate skill.  I’ve had a few therapists use lots of pressure, but it wasn’t applied skillfully and the results weren’t what they could have been.

I have a very high pain threshhold and generally need plenty of pressure to make a change in my muscles.  I also push my body to its limits when I exercise, so my muscles are fairly dense and used to a lot of stress, so I can handle deep pressure very well.

My first massage was about 13 years ago.  At the time, I was doing concrete construction, which included plenty of digging and pushing a wheelbarrow full of dirt or wet concrete – a pretty demanding job.  I didn’t experience any pain, but my muscles got stiff after a while.

So I decided to try massage therapy and had a half hour session with a chiropractic student.  He used deep pressure work, along with triggerpoint and stretching.  The session left me with some bruising on my backside and some spot tenderness – lots of pressure!

But it wasn’t really painful and really loosened my hips and I felt much better – I played softball a few hours later and hit a homerun my first time up – mission accomplished.  There again, I had spent lots of time lifting weights and doing manual labor, so my body was used to being stressed.

Maybe those that don’t do anything physically demanding can’t tolerate a lot of pressure in their massage.  Those with high stress levels – your issues end up in your soft tissues – often seem to need and want more pressure.

The deep tissue massage is designed to release tension in overworked muscles or reduce or realign scar tissue, which may be restricting the muscles’ ability to stretch.  This can include cross fiber friction massage, which is frequently painful or at least, uncomfortable.

This technique is often used by physical therapists in dealing with an injury and can be used by massage therapists, as well.  I’ll finish for now and discuss this more in a second article next week.

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