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A deep tissue massage focuses on the deepest layers of muscle tissue, on tendons, and on fascia (the protective layer surrounding muscles, bones and joints). It is effective for chronically tense and tight areas or injuries, such as stiff necks, lower back problems and tight sore shoulders.
With chronic muscle tension or injury, there are usually adhesions or knots of painful, rigid tissue in muscles, tendons, and ligaments. These adhesions can block circulation, causing pain, limited movement, and inflammation. The aim of deep tissue massage is to break down these adhesions to relieve pain and restore normal movement.
A deep tissue massage focuses on the deepest layers of muscle tissue, on tendons, and on fascia (the protective layer surrounding muscles, bones and joints). It targets the 'knots' and is done to release chronic muscle tension.
The strokes used in deep tissue massage are across the grain of the muscles, unlike Swedish massage, in which the massage is along the fibre of the muscle. The movement is slow and the pressure is deep and concentrated on areas of tension and pain.
At times this more intense technique may cause discomfort and pain, causing a residual soreness that may last a day or two before resulting in the desired relaxation and pain relief.
Trigger Point Massage
It’s a mistake to assume that the problem is at the place that hurts! It could be a trigger point.
The defining symptom of a trigger point is referred pain — with unexplained pain frequently radiating from the trigger point to broader areas, sometimes distant from the trigger point itself. Trigger point massage is a technique that applies pressure to a trigger point to alleviate the source of the pain. This pressure may cause local tenderness, referred pain, or a local twitch response. In muscles they can be felt as palpable knots in the muscle, and often as pain and weakness in the associated structures. They cause pain due to the reduced blood flow to the area, resulting in oxygen starvation and an accumulation of the waste products of metabolism.
Trigger points can be the cause of headaches, neck and jaw pain, lower back pain, tennis elbow, and carpal tunnel syndrome. They can be the source of the pain in joints such as the shoulder, wrist, hip, knee, and ankle that can be mistaken for arthritis, tendonitis, bursitis, or ligament injury — which is why conventional treatments for these types of pain can often fail.
Trigger points can also cause symptoms as diverse as dizziness, earaches, sinusitis, nausea, heartburn, false heart pain, heart arhythmia, genital pain, and numbness in the hands and feet. Fibromyalgia may begin with myofascial trigger points.
You may not be improving in flexibility and strength because of trigger points.
During trigger point massage, the client actively participates in the releasing through deep breathing. The aim of trigger point therapy is to eliminate pain and to re-educate the muscles into pain-free habits. The result of trigger point massage is the elimination of toxins in the muscles and the release of energising endorphins. Usually after several treatments, the pain, swelling and stiffness is reduced, there is an increase in range of motion, tension is relieved, and circulation, flexibility and coordination are improved.
Myofascial Release |
