Engaging Muscles Massage

05/18/2026

Because the owners, general managers, and coaches of professional teams, across the board, don't know what they don't know, they can't recognize that their medical staff is incompetent.

Everyone is compensating for a previous injury, surgery, pregnancy, or the delivery of a child.

When it comes to compensation, professional athletes can adapt to stressors better than 99% of the population. That said, when a professional athlete's brain reaches a threshold and can no longer figure out how to manage the accumulated compensation, they will experience pain or an injury.

You can't have tight muscles without underperforming muscles. Yet ~99% of the practitioners that you and WNBA players have access to don't have the skill set to differentiate between tight muscles and underperforming muscles.

If they could provide the level of care in the aforementioned sentence, more injuries could be avoided, players could be back to play sooner, and, unlike the current state of things, they'd be performing better than before the injury.

Most practitioners will acknowledge muscle imbalances or asymmetries, but when everything is said and done in the treatment room, the athlete doesn't function better than they did before the injury.

The reason WNBA players are back on the court after any injury is mostly due to having what David Epstein coined "the sports gene," which gives their brains the ability to adapt at a level exclusive to those with elite athleticism.

When a practitioner tells you that your quads, a group of four muscles located on the front of your thigh, are tight, ask them which quad is tight. Because it only takes one quadricep to restrict the range of motion at your knee.

Follow your first question up with, which muscles are neurologically inhibited (underperforming), making them unable to perform their role to the best of their ability when my foot is interacting with the ground.

When a practitioner on a WNBA team has an athlete foam rolling or stretching their quadriceps, for instance, more often than not, they don't know which of those muscles are tight. So, of course, all of them are collected.

The lack of specificity increases compensation (that's cumulative), putting WNBA players at greater risk of injury.

05/17/2026

Playing baseball with Achilles bursitis is a recipe for a bigger injury.

05/13/2026

If you've had a knee or hip replacement, no one likely thought to look at the mechanical interrelationship between your rear foot and your knee.

We started the session at 10:30 yesterday morning, and this is the result two hours later, an outcome that's not possible with stretching or actively releasing muscles.

04/30/2026

I recently stumbled upon this headline promoting a version of massage (without mentioning massage): The Common Link in All Sports Injuries: Scar Tissue.

Whether you know it or not, when you're experiencing pain or muscle tightness, you start from a position of not knowing what you don't know (and there's a lot to know!).

At one point in the promotional piece, the author states: "If you're dealing with a lingering injury, recurring pain, or reduced performance, it may not just be 'tightness', it could be scar tissue limiting your body's potential."

If you didn't catch it, the keyword in that sentence is "may".

It's a clue that this approach lacks scientific rigor, and as a result, positive outcomes will not only take longer but also vary considerably.

The Story (Marketing)

When you don't know what you don't know, and you're told you have scar tissue, it sounds promising (and different). In other words, thinking (and remembering) that this approach is "different" than what you've tried before is by design.

To reinforce the "different" angle, the underlying message is, We aren't simply chasing pain or muscle tightness.

While chasing scar tissue is the central idea, practitioners who use this popular approach don't have the skill set to differentiate tight muscles from underperforming ones.

Ultimately, the result is the same as if the practitioner were focusing on chasing pain and muscle tightness.

So, of course, like clockwork, the feel-good feelings don't hold.

If you're one of the small percentage of consumers who walked away feeling no pain or more mobility, you most certainly aren't functioning better than you were before the practitioner addressed the "scar tissue", while at the same time, releasing muscles that may or may not have been tight ( ? ).

Although you can't feel it, your brain, which is hardwired to protect you, found a different way to compensate.

The reason for increased compensation and ultimately fragility: nothing was done to increase stability, which is what changes what your brain perceives.

04/27/2026

I moved to Dallas, Texas, in 2009. I'm a massage therapist and started teaching kinesiology early on, which I did in Connecticut.

As a newcomer to the area, I wanted to build contacts and ultimately get clients.

To achieve both, I thought working part-time at a specialty running shoe store would be productive. Well, the experience I gained there turned out to be one of the best things I've done in my career.

One night, a father came in with his seven-year-old son. Wearing scrubs, he told me that he and his wife were physician assistants.

He went on to say they had seen three podiatrists to get orthotics for their sons' overpronating feet.

The first two podiatrists told them fitting their son for orthotics wasn't necessary at his age.

On the wrong side of right, they took their son to a third podiatrist, who agreed to fit their son for orthotics. In other words, the third podiatrist confirmed their bias (and increased compensation).

When we were about to fit his son for shoes, I explained how important it was to have his son's orthotics in a neutral shoe. The father's ego default led him to make a decision from the wrong side of right once again: he insisted his son was going to walk away with his orthotics in a "stability" running shoe.

Knowing how destructive orthotics are, and then increasing fragility with an overly supportive running shoe, was one of the worst things I've felt in my career. That was the last time I fitted a child for running shoes.

04/25/2026

Did you read this and think to yourself, 'Is the same thing occurring when working with a golf coach, pitching coach, batting coach, or strength coach? The answer is yes.

04/20/2026

Ten thousand steps in shoes that don't complement how your feet function contributes to compensation that's cumulative.

As Japanese Walking takes off online, it’s worth asking: Why did 10,000 steps become the global standard for health? Was it ever based on science? Not exactly—and here’s the step count we should actually be aiming for.

04/19/2026

Rest doesn't address the bigger issue: compensation.

04/05/2026

The amount of material between our feet and the ground, in the form of popular athletic shoes, has gradually reduced the sensory feedback we can take in through the soles of our feet.

The sensory input that's lost from feet that can no longer take in information via mechanoreceptors throughout the skin on the soles of our feet decreases the amount of force that can be applied to the ground when we walk, run, or jump, forcing our bodies to respond more like a Slinky and less like a spring.

04/05/2026

I've been licensed to practice massage for over thirty years. When massage therapists say a muscle is tight, they're guessing. In other words, when a practitioner targets muscles they think are tight, they have no scientific way of confirming the muscle they have in mind is actually tight.

For instance, in most cases, the piriformis is underperforming (neurologically inhibited). When you feel tightness and, as a result, a restricted range of motion, it's your muscles making up for the stability that your piriformis is incapable of providing.

The rub: Muscle tightness is a symptom of underperforming muscles that are unable to play their role to the best of their ability. And to go by feel is to chase a sensation (or a symptom).