Engaging Muscles Massage is less than a mile south of the LBJ freeway (635) and across the street from the Dallas County Tax Office.
All of your sessions at Engaging Muscles Massage will be specific to how your muscles and joints are functioning at the beginning of each appointment.
Since serving as the biomechanics consultant and massage therapist at ESPN, where I tuned up the muscles of on-air talent, strength coaches, personal trainers, and the people behind the scenes, I’ve devoted a great deal of time and attention to developing an approach that includes getting to the root cause of pain, improving performance, and preventing injuries before they occur.Because increasing stability is the highest priority at Engaging Muscles Massage, you’ll walk away with more mobility, flexibility, and strength.
Whether you feel chronic or acute pain, underperforming muscles are the reason for muscle tightness.If this is your first time reading that muscles underperform, you aren’t alone.
To wrap your mind around what you’ve read thus far, think of it like this: You can feel when muscles are tight, but you can’t feel muscles that are underperforming.
First, muscles underperform. Then your brain perceives the threat of instability.
Your brain’s response to the threat of instability plays out in a way that will feel familiar: beyond your conscious awareness, your brain signals muscles to tighten to restrict range of motion.
This is your brain’s way of protecting you from an injury.
To erase the threat of instability, I use a deep tissue sports massage technique to address the underperforming muscles.
When stability is restored, your brain takes notice.
Within a matter of minutes of addressing the underperforming muscles, your brain recognizes that you have more muscles capable of providing stability.
Once the threat of instability is erased, the tight muscles relax, allowing for more mobility, flexibility, and strength.
Whether you spend your days sitting at a desk, doing yardwork, or competing on the field of play, most of the experts who work with the musculoskeletal system can’t differentiate a tight muscle from a muscle that’s underperforming.
Be honest. Neither can you!
When everything is said and done, your guess ends up being as accurate as the experts you’re relying on for answers.
Jump to Address and Map
Jump to Highlights About me
Most practitioners will say, “You can’t have more mobility without stability.”
To clarify, I agree with that. However, the vast majority of the experts who work with the musculoskeletal system aren’t aware of the fact that they don’t have the appropriate tools or skill set to do what increases stability.
So, of course, false promises are everywhere you turn.
Suppose you bought into stretching, foam rolling, or releasing muscles with deep tissue massage, like many people have.
In that case, you’ve undoubtedly worked with experts who, once again, defaulted to increasing mobility and flexibility without increasing stability.
Because stretching, foam rolling, and actively releasing muscles with deep tissue massage don’t increase stability, your muscles go right back to being tight.
Although I don’t know your story yet, I’m willing to bet that you can relate to what you’ve read thus far.It’s fair to say that the experts intentions have been good; however, in real life, stretching, rolling on a lacrosse ball, foam rolling, and releasing muscles with deep tissue massage have two things in common: (1) all of them increase instability (aka the threat), and (2) the threat of instability increases muscle tightness.
Tight muscles are a symptom and a sensation (that aren’t worth chasing).
To your mind, stretching, self-massage tools, and the wide variety of deep tissue massage techniques feel productive, yet beyond your conscious awareness, your brain perceives all of those things as negative inputs, i.e., stressors.
Unlike most experts who work with the musculoskeletal system, I can see the ways in which your brain has chosen to compensate for instability.
For this reason, I get to the root cause of pain, improve performance, and increase the chances of preventing an injury before it happens.
The truth: compensation and fragility go hand in hand.
I’m confident when I tell you this: because most experts who work with the musculoskeletal system ignore compensation as if it doesn’t exist, that has led to surgeries that could have been avoided.
I taught kinesiology (the study of human movement) for fifteen years.
My thirty years of experience as a licensed massage therapist include thousands of one-on-one sessions as a nationally certified personal trainer.
I wrote the foreword for the 1st edition of Joseph Muscolino’s kinesiology textbook. I’ve also been quoted in Runner’s World UK, Massage & Bodywork, and Massage Magazine.
I’m a member of the ABMP (Associated Bodywork & Massage Professionals) and the AMTA (American Massage Therapy Association).
In order to avoid increasing instability and, as a result, muscle tightness, hand over heart, it’s been well over twenty years since I stretched or released muscles with deep tissue massage.
Instead, I’ve addressed the underperforming muscles.
Along the same line, with more muscles capable of providing stability, you won’t have to rely on foot orthotics that, truth be told, increase compensation and fragility. (emphasis added)
After an expert resorted to using “custom” molded foot orthotics to bring the ground up to meet this man’s arches, for ten years, this man’s feet couldn’t initiate shock absorption (aka pronation).
To compensate for the ground being brought up to meet his arches, his feet were forced to roll out, and his lower legs went along for the ride, which increased the bowing of his legs (aka supination).
After ten sessions of addressing the underperforming muscles, his legs were no longer bowed as much as they were at the start of his first session.
The image above is a testament to what’s possible when muscles are fully capable of providing stability.
What you see in the above image is also proof that increasing the muscles’ ability to provide stability allows for positive neuroplastic changes at any age.
After addressing the neuromuscular piece of the puzzle, I focus on improving the neuromechanical piece.
While we are on the subject of having strong feet, most experts who recommend bringing the ground up to meet your arches with foot orthotics don’t have the skill set to identify muscles that are underperforming, which is the reason for muscle tightness in the first place (hint, hint).
To say the same thing in a different way, plantar fasciitis (PF) is rarely about your plantar fascia or the foot pain you feel on those first few steps in the morning.
When the amount of force output it takes for muscles to contract to provide stability, support, and control motion is present, your brain pays attention.
Then, and only then, is it possible for your muscles to efficiently play their role as the first line of defense to prevent a tear of a muscle, labrum, meniscus, or ligament, e.g., the plantar fascia.
If you’ve wondered why sprains, strains, and injuries to the meniscus, labrum, and spinal discs haven’t decreased over the years, the reason is this: our brains are hardwired to recognize when muscles are readily available to provide stability and control motion.
When your muscles feel tight, they are overworking to compensate for the stability that the underperforming muscles are incapable of providing.
For example, if you have a bulging disc and pain to go along with the injury to the disc, beyond your conscious awareness, your brain calls upon certain trunk and spinal muscles to tighten.
By restricting your range of motion with tight muscles, your brain can protect your spinal disc from taking more damage.
To put what you read in the previous sentence in perspective: When muscles are fully capable of providing stability at your spinal joints, for instance, you also have more mobility, which allows for an environment that takes the stress off an injured disc (hint, hint).
Of course, what you read in the previous sentence also applies to any of your synovial joints, e.g., your hip and knee.
To give yourself the gift of what it feels like to have increased stability, schedule a session today.
Have you sprained your ankle and kept walking until you no longer felt discomfort?
If you answered yes, that could be the first straw. If it isn’t the first straw, it’s one straw that was added to the whole.
In any case, whether you “walked it off” or you followed the experts protocol for an ankle sprain, your brain found a workaround.
To ensure you’re catching what I’m throwing, think about a workaround like this: All the injuries, niggles, “custom” foot orthotics, and orthopedic surgeries you’ve endured are a straw.
Because the pre-existing compensation that was a result of the first straw wasn’t addressed in a way that allowed you to function better than you were before the pain or injury, without knowing it, straws have been piled on top of straws for some time now.
To put it another way, plantar fasciitis doesn’t happen overnight, and foot orthotics, night splints, and stretching increase compensation even more than before the foot pain started.
To stop the vicious cycle of false promises, managing symptoms, and running into dead ends at every turn, take control of your health by putting yourself in the driver’s seat with the leverage of second-layer knowledge.
Take the first and most important step to gaining the leverage that you want to become antifragile as you age.
Schedule an online consultation today.
As mentioned earlier, most practitioners don’t have the skill set to differentiate a tight muscle from a muscle that’s underperforming.
While most people who have piriformis syndrome think that their piriformis is tight, in most cases, it’s underperforming.
For example, practitioners who specialize in releasing pelvic floor muscles don’t have the skill set to confirm how many muscles that attach to your pelvis are underperforming.
To put what you read in the previous sentence into perspective, 75% of your muscles attach to your pelvis.
Although your piriformis doesn’t directly attach to your pelvis, it’s one of three muscles that attach your spine to your femur (aka your thigh).
While this goes against popular opinion, the piriformis muscle is rarely tight. Instead, it’s underperforming.
I Released the Piriformis with Deep Tissue Massage 20 Years Ago | NOW I Do THIS!
I have the skill set to know whether your muscles are tight or underperforming. (To see why stretching your piriformis is a waste of your time, watch the short video below.)
Jump to Video of Popular Piriformis Stretch that’s a Waste of Your Time
8 Advantages of Having More Stability
• More mobility (joints)
• More flexibility (muscles)
• More strength (muscles)
• Better results from exercise
• Neuroplastic changes that can only come from increased stability, erasing the threat your brain perceives
• Results that last much longer than twenty-four hours
• Results that allow for antifragility
• Decreases the risk of an injury to your muscles, meniscus, spinal discs, ligaments, and labrum
How many times will practitioners default to stretching, releasing muscles, and one-size-fits-all exercises, like clamshells, for instance, before they change their minds?
Second-Layer Knowledge Confirms THIS Piriformis Stretch is a Waste of Your Time
When you think of the times when experts thought that stretching or releasing muscles was the solution for solving the pain that goes along with piriformis syndrome, there was no assessment to determine whether the muscle was tight, underperforming, or playing its role to the best of its ability.
As counterintuitive as this may be, your piriformis can feel tight when it’s not.
FAQ
When I received deep tissue in the past, I was underneath a sheet or wearing a medical gown, and the massage therapist used lotion or oil. I noticed you address muscles through athletic clothing; why is that?
Answer: Since the time when I provided deep tissue sports massage at ESPN, I’ve preferred to address underperforming muscles through athletic clothing.
When you wear athletic clothing, you can easily move your hip and shoulder joints without a sheet getting in the way.My massage technique doesn’t require sliding or gliding along your skin, so there’s no need for massage oil or lotion.
Location
Engaging Muscles Massage
12700 Hillcrest Rd., Ste. 125, #143
Dallas, TX 75230
Engaging Muscles Massage is approximately 25 miles from Dallas Love Field Airport and 30 miles from DFW Airport.
InvestmentYour first in-office session starts at $295. I also offer package pricing.
Your first online consultation starts at $212.
Most massage techniques are designed to release tight muscles. Without muscles capable of providing stability, your brain won’t allow for more mobility or flexibility.
When you feel what it’s like to have increased stability and, as a result, no tightness, you’ll realize what’s been missing for all of this time.
In other words, you have to feel it to believe it. 🙂
Whether you work with me at my office or online, package pricing is an opportunity to increase stability (muscles), mobility (joints), flexibility (muscles), and strength (muscles) to remain antifragile as you age.
Texas Massage Therapy License: MT110566
I have held a license to practice massage therapy for thirty years. For eighteen of those years, I was a nationally certified personal trainer. During that time, I completed thousands of one-on-one personalized fitness training sessions. I went on to teach the biomechanics of exercise to personal trainers, group exercise instructors, and physical therapists throughout New England. Teaching exercise biomechanics led to consulting for The Greenbrier, Canyon Ranch, and ESPN, which evolved into providing deep tissue and sports massage for four years at ESPN.