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Massage Basics

To understand massage, it's best to start with what causes muscles to hurt. When muscles are overused or stressed, they accumulate waste products within the muscle and in the surrounding tissue. Our bodies are designed to walk around, gather and grow food, run away from predators, play and rest. This movement not only engages the muscles, but facilitates the circulatory and lymph systems in removing waste. Sitting at a desk all day, sitting in traffic, and sitting in front of the television deny the body's natural processes from functioning.

 Human Design Picture
As waste accumulates, it changes the pH of the surrounding tissue. This is what we feel as pain. Lactic acid, uric acid and other components of the waste irritate tissue causing more toxins to be released and thus creating a self-feeding cycle. If this continues, the condition will become chronic. When the cycle is broken and healing begins, the damaged tissue may adhere adjoining muscles or fascia together. Adhesions restrict muscle function, which irritate the tissue, beginning a new cycle of pain.

Hypertonic, or "tight" muscles are spasms we feel as a sore knot. Unlike sore muscles, trigger points are microspasms that are usually smaller than a pea. Most people don't even feel these spasms. Trigger points impinge on surrounding nerves and blood vessels, referring pain elsewhere. This phenomena confuses many people - a sore ankle can be caused by a microspasm near the top of your calf that's no bigger than a corn kernel, but you probably wouldn't know to look there.

Often when something hurts, the pain may be caused by something else. If you have an office job and your back hurts, there's a good chance your chest muscles are causing the pain.

Massage therapists have thorough training in agonist, antagonist, and synergistic muscle pairings. In short, when a muscle hurts and there's no trauma, the pain is usually the result of a different muscle group and we know who the usual suspects are. We have specific techniques at our disposal to address these conditions. We will also teach you stretched and exercises you can do to prevent reoccurrences and minimize pain.


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