How Body Therapy Can Work for You
Therapeutic Massage & Bodywork involves understanding and being in tune with the body and how it moves. Different techniques and modalities are used to affect the soft tissues (muscles, tendons, ligaments, fascia) in order to restore normal tissue texture, tension, flexibility, and function. The techniques used are based on an individual’s condition, symptoms, body language, and health history. And much like exercise, the effects of body therapy and massage are cumulative: each treatment builds on the previous one.
FMS™ Functional Movement Screen will let me see how your body is moving and note asymmetries and compensations that can cause pain, discomfort, and injuries. The information is incorporated into treatment plans and goals.
RockTape RockDoc I use RockTape brand kinesiology tape to help with pain management, athletic performance, injury rehab, edema/swelling, posture correction, and pregnancy support. It is also available for purchase!
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Deep Tissue Massage
Deep tissue massage addresses specific issues and focuses on limited areas of the body for the duration of the session. This is not a full body massage. The goal is to break up scar tissue adhesions in the many layers of fascia, as a result of a single trauma or repeated microtrauma, that affect the tissue movement and your body’s range of motion. Scar tissue buildup can lead to dysfunctional biomechanics and compensations that can cause pain.
Techniques include transverse friction, active release, PNF stretching, and other myofascial releases to soften, break up, and rearrange connective tissue for proper function. Deep tissue massage is used for post-injury, post-surgery, overuse/repetitive stress injuries (carpal tunnel syndrome, thoracic outlet syndrome, sitting or texting long periods, tendinitis from sports).
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Sports Massage
If you are an athlete – professional or amateur/weekend warrior – you are probably committed to your sport or activity. You ask your body to perform at a high level, so you need regular body therapy to help maintain, or even improve, your performance and prevent injuries. When you do get injured, therapeutic massage can help you recover more quickly than without it.
Understanding how you move is critical for proper treatment. Movement in one part of the body can affect other distant, seemingly unrelated, areas of the body. That’s why treating your leading foot could affect your opposite serving/pitching shoulder. Treatments are geared to your specific sport or activity.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Massage for Back Pain / Injury
Back pain is one of the most common reasons for missing work. Most cases are mechanical and non-organic, meaning not caused by serious conditions. Pain management through massage, along with exercises, can help relieve symptoms and even correct the pain-causing problem.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Massage for Stress
Sitting at a desk, staring at a computer screen, cradling a phone on your shoulder, texting all your coworkers/friends/family, running around crossing off your to-do items can all contribute to poor posture and repetitive stress injuries, resulting in muscle tension and, not surprisingly, pain. This “Silicon Valley Syndrome” is rampant, and we tend to “hold/carry our stress” in our shoulders, putting pressure on our vertebrae straining our neck, back, and butt muscles while shortening our chest, abdomen, and hip muscles. We’re training our bodies to stay folded up and when we go to do something active, we get fatigued easily or, worse, hurt.
Massage can help release our shortened muscles and fascia to relieve the pressure on our backs and necks.
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Surgeries and injuries damage tissues and result in inflammation and the formation of scar tissue. Tissue fibers form in specific directions, but scar tissue forms in all directions, which causes reduced mobility if left as it is formed. Getting massage, and specifically deep tissue massage techniques, after surgery or an injury helps rearrange the scar tissue to facilitate recovery and function to the many layers of fascia and the joints. Working directly on the scar can help keep it supple and moving freely.
I can partner with your doctor, chiropractor, physical therapist, acupuncturist to speed your recovery.