There is so much more to Deep Tissue Massage than just pushing hard or using your elbows. Deep tissue massage involves getting into the “deeper” levels of the muscle tissue. This technique does not necessarily require extreme levels of force. The skill in order to get deep into the muscle tissue fibers requires slow, deliberate, and precise pressure along with muchbpatience. You can not rush into deep tissue. Many who have received a hard pressure massage come away with the feeling of just being bruised. That’s because the therapist was pushing through without checking in with their client. This technique involves the clients ability to breathe and relax along with proper communication from both therapist and client. This vital communication in deep tissue underlies the main difference between increasing the healing process and torturing someone.
At the base of many large muscle pains and aches, lay the small area of pain that triggered it all. When you can find the root cause of the problem you can then easily address it and change an area 10x the size. The key to this technique is getting the right angle, pressure, length of time and communication with the client to get the body to “reset”. Once the brain recognizes a problem in a muscle, it will increase circulation to the area to bring in fresh blood to repair the injury. The problem begins when this signal doesn’t turn off. The increased blood flow then becomes unwanted inflammation. This in turn sets off a snow ball effect that turns a large area into an achypain. By resetting this signal, helping the brain body connection to normalize, you can clear out the affected area quite rapidly of pain and inflammation.
Fascia is best explained as layers upon layers of “saran wrap” like tissue that interconnects everything in your body together. It is directly
underneath your skin, surrounds your muscles, nerves, blood vessels and organs. When there is damage to a muscle, the surrounding fascia can become dense and less flexible. Even when the muscle has repaired itself, the surrounding fascia can still make the affected area feel restricted. Since our fascia is intertwined throughout our bodies, we can even have sensations of pain in areas that were not injured. When the tight fascia is stretched you will feel a burning sensation. This undesirable feeling is sometimes unavoidable if you want complete recovery from an injury. Here again is where good communication comes in between therapist and client. The therapist should only go as far and as fast as the client is willing and able to allow. Once the fascial tissue is released, one should feel a sense of being liberated.
Proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation. Now say that five times fast! PNF takes stretching to an entirely new level. We all remember in high school gym class, when the teacher had us all stretch to our limit and then bounce so we could stretch farther. This teaching has been one of the greatest disservices to our physical education. When you stretch to your full limit, and then add a bounce, sure you can stretch farther, but you are ripping the muscle tissue to do it. PNF stretching was designed way back in the 40′s and 50′s, but did not start to become mainstream until after the 80′s. Simply stated, PNF stretching incorporates hold-relax techniques. This technique utilizes the golgi tendon organ, which relaxes a muscle after a sustained contraction has been applied to it for longer than 6 seconds. By doing this, especially with the help of a trained therapist, you can achieve incredible increases in your flexibility without endangering the muscle tissue.
The benefits of massage are extensive. Many do not realize the intense pain that can result from muscle tension. Muscle tension leads to joint dysfunction which then leads to inflammation. This inflammation then decreases our joint function even more and with this decreased blood flow our bodies ability to self heal is decreased. Therapeutic massage with a trained therapist can relieve the pain associated with these common over use syndromes or injury sustained in a car accident: Many pain symptoms, especially from car accidents, can be associated with joint dysfunction related to tight muscle tissue. After a few sessions of massage with a trained therapist you should be able to determine if massage can help. When it comes to car accidents, it is essential to follow up with your doctor to verify that there are not any other complications beyond soft tissue damage. By Oregon State law, motor vehicle insurance companies must pay for medically necessary massage therapy treatments for up to 2 years after the date of injury.
