Today was my first class in Myofascial Release training, and I’ve been totally blown away. What has been shown and talked about has been so stunning and contradictory that it has hit like a ton of bricks. But it makes perfect sense. If you hadn’t figured it out yet, this is a teaching entry, but don’t totally overlook it. If you read on, I think you will be as amazed as I am.
John Barnes was a physical therapist some 20 or more years ago. A running accident made him start looking to find something new to help people, himself included. After a lot of looking, he developed a system that seems to be doing wonders with people that suffer from all types of problems.
Basically it works like this. Fascia is skin. Below the level of the skin, fascia is called dura. To put it simply, this is the connective tissue that touches on every organ in our body. When someone goes to medical school, they're given a cadaver to work on. The first thing that happens, is that they have to remove all the fascia to learn about the organs, muscles, and so forth. In massage school, they call it connective tissue. In both cases, it is ignored except for the fact that they mention it.
At times, the fascia in various places of the body can become tight and non-elastic. You see, fascia is supposed to be like rubber. It's supposed to move, and stretch, and bend every which way. All too many times, it doesn't. Now, one thing you have to realize is that fascia is like a big spider web that goes through your body. Like a spider web, when something happens at one point, the impulses are transmitted throughout the entire web. In this case, every part of the body knows that something has happened to another part. In the area that something is happened, the fascia can become tight and constricted. This is where myofascial release comes in.
What initially happens, is that a myofascial release therapist will examine their client or patient to figure out where they need work. (A myofascial release therapist can be either massage therapist or physical therapist. Out of the 140 students that were in my class – that’s right, 140 students, I think the large majority of them were physical therapists.) This therapist will look at a client either in a swimsuit or their underwear (or less if permitted – the more of the body they can see, the more information they can get) to see where the body does not line up. They will look at a person from the front and see if the shoulders are level, if the hips are level, if the pelvis is off to one side. Then they will look at the client from the side to see if the pelvis is forward, if the legs are extended, if the shoulders are dropped and forward. Next, they look at the client from the back and try to see the same things they saw from the front.
All too many people, myself included, will have one shoulder higher than the other, and one hip higher than the other, one leg turned out, another in. Usually the shoulder that is lower will be the same side that the hip is higher. This indicates a constriction in the fascia on that side. This tells the therapist where to work. The first thing they'll do, is a myofascial release move to stretch and elongate the fascia on the side that is constricted. Unlike other modes of massage. The therapist expects feedback from the client. Most of the time, the client will feel something pulling or vibrating somewhere else in their body. Other times, the therapist will look over the client and find there are places of their body that turned red. These things indicate the next place that the therapist needs to work. They will continue this routine, until there are no more places to work, or until the scheduled time has expired.
At the class, they showed a lot of pictures of people before receiving myofascial release treatment, and after. The results of the pictures showed were phenomenal. Even those that had received only 15 minutes of myofascial release treatment, had straightened out considerably. Now, this is not to say that these amazing things will happen on everybody that is worked on, but it does show that such miracles are possible.
According to John Barnes, there are many problems today that the doctors don’t have a clue about, that can be fixed with myofascial release. He claims that there is no such thing as carpal tunnel syndrome. I know, I know. There are thousands of doctors out there as well as patients that disagree with him. But look at it this way. Carpal tunnel is a hardening of the tissue in the wrist. The tissue which is actually fascia. The constricted fascia becomes painful and then carpal tunnel is diagnosed and surgery is done. Now, if the fascia in the wrist can be made flexible again, then the carpal tunnel goes away.
The same can be said for fibromyalgia. A constriction of the fascia in the body somewhere causes the pain that is diagnosed as fibromyalgia. The doctors have no cure for this, so they give the patient drugs. John has helped so many people with both of these illnesses with myofascial release that it is really amazing.
It is truly an amazing thing, and I'm looking forward to getting back and putting this training to practice.