The primary goal of Therapeutic Massage / Bodywork, or "fix-up work”, is to resolve the primary issue you are having with your body. This most typically involves resolving issues of chronic pain and stiffness in specific areas of your body. Some of the techniques used are Deep Tissue Massage, Myofascial release, and energetic techniques such as Craniosacral Therapy and Therapeutic Touch. Even though the goal of Therapeutic Bodywork is not relaxation, you are likely to be quite relaxed by the end of such a session.
Some of the benefits of Therapeutic Massage / Bodywork sessions include pain relief from repetitive motion, motor vehicle accidents, falls, sport injuries, and surgeries. It also helps relieve the tension and stress that typically gets lodged in the classic chronic pain zones of your body such as the head, neck, shoulders, low back, hips and the joints of your body.
With the Therapeutic Massage / Bodywork sessions, you will be resolving your primary concerns, without receiving and experiencing the wholistic benefits of the Rolfing ten session series protocol or recipe. In many cases this involves simply resolving an issue in your physical body. However, within a Therapeutic Bodywork session working with issues of your body-mind (Body Psychology) can and is often used depending on your interests and needs.
Testimonials
After having received two sessions of Therapeutic Massage / Bodywork on the clients forearm weeks after having undergone surgery: "Thank you so much. You have helped me many times, but never in such a significant, impressive way." - Alicen
After one Therapeutic Massage / Bodywork session: "I want to thank you. Whatever you did, for a single treatment, moved me farther and faster along than anything else has." - Adam
After one Therapeutic Massage / Bodywork session: Thank you, thank you. I can’t believe the difference in my ankle. My foot is striking the floor differently when I walk. Things are cracking and readjusting and I have some interesting sensations around my left sitting bone. I’m hoping I can hold on to this benefit (which seems like a miracle to me). The wrist is also very much improved. I’m hoping we can repeat the same stuff next week.Thanks again. I’m very, very happy. - Anonymous
After Receiving two Therapeutic Massage / Bodywork sessions (note: she had received the Rolfing 10 sessions series 2 years prior) Sorry it took so long for me to update you about the condition of my foot, but my foot feels soooo much better, I even forgot it hurt. It has been giving me no trouble at all. It took a bit for it to feel like this after the last session, but it is great now. I am definitely not walking like a cripple in the morning anymore. Thank-you for the the relief, from the dread, of having to walk on my feet in the morning. Have a Happy New Year!! Thank-you for helping mine be better. - Pam Donahue
The problems of poor posture, muscle tension, and stress-caused pain are corrected by seeing them through the lens of kinesthetic awareness. Normal kinesthetic awareness is lacking in much of the population and typically overlooked by health care practitioners. Craig Williamson
Book List
Bob Cooley - The Genius of Flexibility - www.thegeniusofflexibility.com Craig Williamson - Muscular Retraining for Pain-Free Living Paperback Miranda Esmonde-White - Aging Backwards – Reverse the aging process and look 10 years younger in 30 minutes a day Pete Egoscue - Pain Free a Revolutionary Method For Stopping Chronic Pain - http://www.egoscue.com Rob Garza - An article to promote learning about anatomy and how the human body works. https://www.acls.net/study-guide-body-systems.htm
Pain Resolution
How to Heal - Education
Another important ingredient in Rolfing, Therapeutic Massage / Bodywork and general healing your body is by understanding why your body is hurting, how it got that way and what exactly is needed to heal the issue.
The Role of the Nervous system - Why do we experience pain?
When pain does not go away, we call it chronic. The question is what is the origins of chronic pain: the type that is always moving around or does not go away? The role of the nervous system is critical in answering this question. It boils down to the nervous system giving our body a pain response. It does so because the nervous system's job is to keep us alive and to survive. So, it will alert us of of any emanate danger and reminds us of any past dangers. The problem is that he nervous system may continue to give us a pain response even if the danger from the past is now gone. It may give a pain response that is disproportionate or to what is actually going on. This is key. Once you learn what the nervous system is trying to protect you from and the danger no longer present, the pain response has the potential to greatly lessen and stop.
The order of things – Release / Mobilize / Strengthen
For your body to recover and be restored, three things must take place. Your body must Release, Mobilize, and Strengthen. You can do much of this on your own and with the help of practitioners.
1. Releasing means un-sticking the tissues (muscles, connective tissue, scar tissue, tendons, and ligaments) that are adhered or stuck to one another like glue or joints that are not free to move appropriately. Your body can be manually released by someone else with massage or therapeutic bodywork, and you can learn to release your own body with foam and ball rolling and with yoga and stretching techniques.
2. Mobilizing means getting these regions of your body that have been stuck, to move. This can be gross and or isolated micro-movements. For example you can tighten all of your fingers into a fist and then you can isolate one finger and only move it in its full range of motion. It entails learning how to tighten or engage, release, and coordinate movements in their full range of motion. It involves learning new movement patterns. For example, can you tighten and release one glute or bum cheek at a time, first one then the other? If not, the one you cannot move so well is likely stiff, not mobile, and you are not able to coordinate its movement. This makes this glue muscle or region of your body weak.
3. Strengthening means that your body will regain vitality and hardiness now that you are able move it more freely. You gain strength because it is being used. And once it is being used, you gain more muscle strength. Strength comes when you are able to consciously coordinate movement specifically to the regions of the body that have been stiff, ridged, weak, and immobile. Strength naturally returns once your ability to move is regained. Now that is pretty cool! This process of restoring function is most effect when this happens in this order or all at the same time in unison. For example, if you can receive Rolfing and have at the same time have a Tai Chi, Chi Gong, Yoga, Pilates, Essentrics, or stretching practice. If one of these three is not addressed, recovery will likely not happen.
I. Release
1. Releasing Releasing means un-sticking the tissues (muscles, connective tissue, scar tissue, tendons, and ligaments) that are adhered or stuck to one another like glue or joints that are not free to move appropriately. Your body can be manually released by someone else with Massage, Rolfing or Therapeutic Bodywork, and you can learn to release your own body with foam and ball rolling and with yoga and stretching techniques.
A Revolutionary Method to Stop Chronic Pain: Egoscue is a proven method that gets to the root of your chronic pain by returning your body to proper alignment, function and balance. Web site - http://www.egoscue.com Pete Egoscue - Pain Free -a Revolutionary Method For Stopping Chronic Pain
A part of therapeutic bodywork is learning ways that you can help yourself such as with foam and ball rolling. It is a way to give yourself a deep tissue corrective bodywork. The Melt Method - (Effective Foam Rolling instruction) - https://www.meltmethod.com Dynamic Vibrating Foam Roller Hyper Ice - https://youtu.be/WdCgGE4r3HM
Understand the Mechanics of low back pain & How to mobilize and strengthen the low back pain spine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyGaKuSzD_M Book - Back Mechanic - the secretes to a health spine your doctor isn’t telling you - The step by step McGill Method to fix back pain Book - Ultimate Back Fitness and Performance
II Mobilize
2. Mobilizing means getting these regions of your body that have been stuck, to move. This can be gross and or isolated micro-movements. For example you can tighten all of your fingers into a fist and then you can isolate one finger and only move it in its full range of motion. It entails learning how to tighten or engage, release, and coordinate movements in their full range of motion. It involves learning new movement patterns. For example, can you tighten and release one glute or bum cheek at a time, first one then the other? If not, the one you cannot move so well is likely stiff, not mobile, and you are not able to coordinate its movement. This makes this glue muscle or region of your body weak.
Breath
Learning to breath fully and properly is fundamental to movement and to pain resolution.
Areas of your body that are in pain, are injured, or compromised usually don't know how to move independently from the rest of the body. They typically lack coordination. They may know how to contract, but they do not know how to let go. They usually are attempting to hold the body together. They know how to concentrically contact but do not know how to eccentrically engage and elongate. The point here is to learn how to move the areas that are lacking conscious movement.
Hypopressive is a true engagement of your core for proper function of your entire body. It trains your body to restore your pelvic health and to true engagement and function of your core. Traditional approaches to pelvic health and core exercise focus training one segment of the core at a time unlike the Hypopressive – Low Pressure Fitness programs approach to functional ‘core’ health. To Learn more - click here
Experience the joy of movement! Move like never before. See how to have better posture, greater athletic performance and to rehabilitate. Learn how to walk, run, stand, work, and/or do your sport more effectively/efficiently. Get acquainted with your breath, and how trauma is held in the body. Rolfing Movement is a system of movement & embodiment education. The purpose is to increase ease, joy, and efficiency of movement, to develop a more powerful sense of self, and to release the stress caused by "gravity resisting" movement patterns. It is a process of exploration, education, and self-discovery. The work is gentle and non-intrusive. The Rolf Institutes description of Rolfing Movement -www.rolf.org/about/movement
Primal Posture - The Gokhale Method Esther Gokhale
Primal posture: Ubong tribesmen in Borneo (right) display the perfect J-shaped spines. A woman in Burkina Faso (left) holds her baby so that his spine stays straight. The center image shows the S-shaped spine drawn in a modern anatomy book (Fig. I) and the J-shaped spine (Fig. II) drawn in the 1897 anatomy book Traite d'Anatomie Humaine. Courtesy of Esther Gokhale and Ian Mackenzie/Nomads of the Dawn
III Strengthening - Active Mobility
3. Strengthening means that your body will regain vitality and hardiness now that you are able move it more freely. You gain strength because it is being used. And once it is being used, you gain more muscle strength. Strength comes when you are able to consciously coordinate movement specifically to the regions of the body that have been stiff, ridged, weak, and immobile. Strength naturally returns once your ability to move is regained. Now that is pretty cool!
Pilates: One-on-one with equipment
Gyrotonics: - One on one with equipment - Round Circular Movents
Meridian Stretches - The Genius of Flexibility Bob Cooley
Corrective Meridian Stretches is a form of stretching that is rehabilitative, corrective, and dynamic. It involves resistance flexibility or isometric stretching. It also targets and treats the organs via the meridians of the body. It is good for anyone of all abilities.
Essentrics - Therapeutic and Dynamic Movement / Stretching Miranda Esmonde-White
Essentrics - 1.A dynamic workout that simultaneously lengthens and strengthens every muscle in the body, resulting in greater joint mobility and lean, long muscles. 2.A full-body technique that works through the muscle chains, liberating and empowering the muscles, relieving them from tension in the process. 3.A completely original workout that draws on the flowing movements of tai chi which create health and balance, the strengthening theories behind ballet which create long, lean, flexible muscles and the healing principles of physiotherapy which create a pain free body. 4. Medical Definition: Eccentric training is defined as active contraction of a muscle occurring simultaneously with lengthening of the muscle.
How to correct kyphosis, Hunched back, over rounding of the upper back hump Exercises with a sock and a Foam Roller (Bob and Brad) - https://youtu.be/6Uko-gs--C8 Strengthen and activation exercises - https://youtu.be/gfSCZbb9MOY Strand up straight reminder brace
Since chaos governs our nervous system our ability to create order out of chaos is a sign of growth and development - Donald Epstein
Nutrition
Chinese Medicine There are 5 pillars of health in Chinese Medicine. One of them is nutrition. Having poor nutrition will often result in poor digestion, absorption of nutrients, and then inflammation. Inflammation makes our tissues less supple and much more sensitive and painful during a massage or Rolf session. As a result the body has a much harder time letting go of unnecessary restrictions. Seeing as we live in the far North some simple tips that seem to apply to most of us can help: Don't use a microwave oven, eat no frozen foods, little to no dairy, cooked warm foods and drink warm liquids, and avoid processed sugar. Here is a book on this topic