Myofascial Release – Things I have Learnt.

1. The body is complex.
   I would counsel anyone who is currently undergoing treatment to be suspicious if all that is being treated is the area that is painful. There is normally a line or train of tight muscles that cause a specific area to tighten up. 

2. Myofascial release works.
   You are made up of a ‘material’ or fascia that holds you all together. If you wanted to build a human from scratch you would not just throw intestines, stomach, liver e.t.c. into the abdominal cavity and hope for the best. You would need to keep all these organs, muscles etc in place. The fascia wraps itself around the entire body thus holding it together. It can form stress points that pull the body out of balance. Sometimes it’s not so much about releasing the muscle as it is about releasing the fascia. There have been amazing strides forward in this form of release and we have seen phenomenal results.

3. There is no replacement for hands-on work.
   A lot of practitioners overly rely on, in my mind, all sorts of machines at the expense of hands-on work. Hands- on work is tiring for any therapist and a number of therapists have injured their hands in the process. However there is no replacement for getting hands onto a tight muscle.

4. Shoulders are used to move arms and the core is used to move legs.
   I know the above sentence is a bit simplistic but bear with me for a moment. I recently tightened up my rhomboid on the right hand side of my back from being a bit over zealous in the pool. It took work on the upper arm to bring the system back to equilibrium. We all run the risk of forgetting to release the leg/arm that is linked to a troubled hip or shoulder area.
5. Muscles remember.
   We athletes love the term, ‘muscle memory’ and by it we correctly connect fitness to the muscles ability to move us forward in a coordinated fashion. However, there is an increasing awareness that your muscles remember stressful events. I am convinced that people that have gone through stressful events need both psychological intervention as well as body work.
6. We live in a flexor dominant world.
   Your flexor muscles pull the body toward itself. Your bicep muscle pulls your lower arm toward your upper arm-it’s a flexor. We spend a lot of time sitting. We sit to eat, while driving and then some more at work. Added to that, many of us sleep on our sides in a, you guessed it, seated position. That means that the muscles that love to stretch you out and hold you up, get pulled into all sorts of unnatural positions for long periods. Those muscles need a bit of care. Stand, stretch, run, walk, swim, do burpees, throw in some mountain climbers, and get a massage.

   
   …and how to do mountain climbers –
   

7. Running shoes help but don’t necessarily cure running injuries.
   We get people in the shop complaining of an injury and asking which running shoe they should buy. Well, some shoes do provide relief for certain injuries, but unlike antibiotics that are designed to nuke specific bacteria, running shoes cannot have that effect. You will need to strengthen some muscles, stretch others and at times get sticky and stuck systems released through massage.
8. A stitch in time saves nine.
   Tight lower back muscles can cause the spine to get pulled out of its designed position. You can get away with that for a while, but the unnatural back position might play up later in life. Get those muscles sorted out now.For some reason athletes love to try and ‘run through’ an injury. Most of us have swum, biked and/or run though an injury hoping it would go away with time, only to start treatment a bit too late and needing weeks if not months to recover.
9. Kinesiology tape works.
   It can be used to aid myofascial release, correct the position of unbalanced systems and support painful areas. Correctly applied it can extend the effects of what was started during a massage.

Let me know if I can help. Book on 066 236 9187.

Regards,

Mike Roscoe.

Kinesiologist.