08/01/2023
Did You Know?
All that stiffness that you feel isn't usually your muscles?
Did You Know,
that you have an entire net made of a substance known as Fascia, that covers you from head to toe?
This Fascia, also prevents your organs from floating out of place and permits for healthy lymphatic fluid to flow and distribute throughout your entire bio-system.
Fascia is mostly responsible for trigger points, AKA "knots" or "adhesions" that we receive most commonly in our Upper Trapezius and Shoulder-Girdle muscles.
As a result of these adhesions, other dysfunctions travel through the "Net" and create referral pain as well as restricted movement along with other factors.
Oftentimes, when a dysfunction in the Fascia has settled in for a chronic amount of time, the body will have adopted a "compensation-mechanism" which will have again, transferred the local dysfunction to other parts of the respective "Net."
In general terms, when you bunch up one part of the Net, the rest of the Net is affected, consequently.
The body is an entire UNIT that works to repeatedly correct itself and create balance where it is needed.
So these compensation-mechanisms are the body's way of coping with dysfunctional patterns and can result in a long-term approach to "re-programming" or "correcting" the body back to its normality.
Soft tissue will usually take many sessions to correct on account of this compensation and this is why Manual Therapy/Massage Therapy is so important.
Soft tissue is hardly ever appropriately addressed in standard clinical situations.
For example;
there are many people getting treated for myofascial pain with opiates/pain-killers when they could get proper relief with as little as 1-3 massage sessions.
Sometimes people can manage their pain symptoms and avoid surgery with continual massage and holistic approaches, as well as lifestyle changes.
Again, it depends on the situation and the individual biological history, but this is the truth with soft tissue.
Stiffness, local pain that seems intermittent, or even consistent pain that comes with sedentary lifestyles can all be affected with a Manual/Massage Therapy approach.
The general public are very uninformed about the full benefits of these types of therapies and are often over-looked when it comes to a fully-rounded treatment approach.
This is why I always recommend to clients to at least try to receive a 1-hour, full-body massage at least once a month, if they can.
Their overall quality of life will improve as a result.
Stretching and the other necessary homework will extend said benefits for longer amounts of time, but again the motivation relies on the individual effort.
If you or anyone should have any questions regarding what you may suspect is an issue related to soft-tissue,
feel free to reach out.
-Sharon Register, LMT
MA82157
Photo credit:
https://columbuschiropractors.com/fascia-the-mysterious-body-part-that-may-be-the-root-cause-of-your-discomfort/
