When push comes to shove, deep tissue massage isn’t what you feel.
To wrap your head around this, combine the amount of force that’s produced with the scattershot ways in which the pressure is applied.
As good as a deep tissue massage feels at the time, walking away from the massage table with loosey-goosey muscles doesn’t align with how muscles function.
That is the reason why the results of deep tissue are short-lived.
If you’ve ever received a deep tissue massage, you’ve more than likely heard the words, “trigger point,” “ropy band” or “knot” used to describe the reason why you regularly feel tightness.
What deep tissue practitioners think they feel underneath their hands adds up to a whole lot of randomness.
Your best bet is to stand guard at the door of your mind. From that place, recognize that going by feel isn’t always what your mind perceives it to be.
“The belief, however, is that muscles relax with more pressure. The truth is, muscles relax more when the nervous system tells them to.”
— David Lauterstein, Author of To Relieve Muscle Tension, Deeper Is Not Always Better – Massage Magazine
The Thing About Elbows
It’s been said that elbows save hands. While that may be the case, it doesn’t change the fact that an elbow doesn’t allow for specificity (or stability).
When the pressure and broad contact of an elbow are used to deliver the outside force, you run the risk of muscles that are capable of performing their role being collected. Meanwhile, muscles that aren’t capable of pulling their weight are still underperforming.
Without knowing it, you can end up with more instability and compensation than you had before deep tissue.
Deep tissue massage also coaxes muscles into responding in ways that are similar to that of a Slinky®.
Even with zero gravity, a Slinky® is droopy.
Moment-to-moment, you and I are dealing with the constant pull of gravity. For this reason, we want muscles that are the opposite of droopy.
While mobility and flexibility are buzz words that are used to persuade you into believing that it’s what you want to aim for, the truth is neither one is possible without stability.
In most cases, what’s promoted as increasing mobility and flexibility also leads to muscles that function in ways that don’t allow for efficient storage of elastic energy.
It can be the inability to store the most amount of elastic energy for golf, running – you name it. No matter how you slice it, droopy muscles won’t allow your joints to move at the right time, in the right direction, or at the right joint.
You can count on all sorts of nonsense being thrown at the wall. Chasing pain and addressing symptoms has become the norm.
Mostly, because the time it takes to increase stability doesn’t fit into a certain business model.
Even if your piriformis is tight, it’s not the enemy.
In MOST cases the piriformis isn’t capable of pulling its weight.
When your piriformis isn’t capable of providing stability, muscles that play a similar role are forced to function in ways that require them to take on more of the workload.
The key is to turn a false sense of stability into a level of stability to where your brain no longer senses instability.
When you have more muscles that are capable of playing their role to the best of their ability, that’s all the more stability that carries over to controlling posture.
A brain that doesn’t recognize stability is the reason why you continue to scratch the same itch.
Spinal adjustments, deep tissue massage, and foam rolling have one thing in common: none of them improve an under-performing muscle’s ability to pull (read: generate tension).
When under-performing muscles aren’t capable of playing their role at a spinal joint, no amount of thrust is going to allow a spinal adjustment to hold.
Attempting to force function upon spinal joints only allows your body to figure out a different way in which to compensate for what continues to be ignored, i.e., stability.
(Principles)
You don’t have to do any gardening to know that when you don’t pull the weeds out by their roots, you’ll keep getting what you’ve been getting.
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”There’s a thought process that says, “When you have more stability throughout your spine and trunk, you’ll have more stability throughout your extremities.”
Where deep tissue massage and many other techniques come up short is that they don’t allow for an increase in stability.
HOW and WHERE force is applied change the overall outcome of a deep tissue massage.In the video below, I purposely aimed at showing that from session to session, her range of motion held. It held because her brain recognized stability throughout her trunk and spine.
Sidebar: muscles that are responsible for stabilizing her trunk and spine are listed in the description for this video. I also included time stamps.
If you can’t lift your arm, and you’re looking for help, I’m willing to bet that thousands of practitioners will put all of their focus into addressing your shoulder.
In any case, only one shoulder muscle was addressed in each session. After four sessions, she was able to bring her arm overhead.
You saw the quality of motion and the overall results. That’s not possible with a deep tissue massage that’s aimed at addressing muscle tightness.
Addressing muscles in a way that allows your brain to recognize stability in positions where there’s instability goes a long way.
Going forward, know that in the world of the extraordinary delivering on a promise is possible. I see it every day.
SHIP.
(Art)
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Photography Credits:
Image by Ryan Hoyme from Pixabay
Image by StrikingFocus Flickr via Compfight cc
Image by Nino Liverani
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.
