Sprain vs Strain

Strain or sprain- who knows the differnce? It turns out that sprain refers to an injury of the ligament, or the connective tissue attachment between bones. A strain refers to an injury of a muscle or tendon, the fibrous less contractile tissue that attaches muscle to bone. Both strain and sprain can range in severity and recovery times.

Massage for Ankle Strain

Today, let’s focus on those muscles most commonly effected by ankle strain. Fibularis longus and brevis both help to extend your foot and also to pull your foot to the side. Gymnasts, dancers, runners and clumsy people with unbalanced, weak ankle musculature can injure these muscles if not careful. A trained massage therapist can perform cross fiber massage to help release adhesions, thereby unbinding fibers to return functionality. A therapist who knows active asolated stretching technique can offer additional guided therapy while you contract effected muscles.

Massage and Healing of Strain

Regular massage by a therapist specializing in injury recovery will substantially accelerate your recovery time from weeks to days in some cases. In order to make that happen however, you want to commit to a minimum of biweekly sessions, and preferably have a session every two to three days. These frequent targeted sessions can last only twenty to thirty minutes and therefore you may get a few sessions in for the cost of one full hour or a ninety minute massage. Depending on the severity of your injury, you will want to come in for a minimum of two weeks to help insure the healing process. After you have recovered functionality and feel pain free, you can discuss your future massage schedule with your therapist and or other medical professional.

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Exercise brings plenty of benefit to anyone’s life. However, some commonly accepted and promoted kinds of exercises can also cause important detrimental effects when done improperly or over zealously. Crunches and sit ups come to mind as some of the staples of a regular workout. We focus on definition in our abs, not realizing the big picture. In the big picture, focusing on shortening these muscles drags down your ribs and contributes to slouching.

Muscle Reciprocal Pairs

Whenever you work a certain muscle group you want to also remember to work its antagonist. An antagonist is the muscle group that allows the agonist to lengethen while its being contracted. All too often, people feel that a certain area of their body seems weak, and overwork these “weak muscles” by making them tighter than ever before, while avoiding its anatgonist for fear of contributing to its perceived “strength”. This actually causes lack of balance between these muscle groups and sets you up for lots of chronic discomfort, until you change your exercise approach.

Abdominals Need Massage

Psoas, an important muscle that contributed to good abdominal muscle tone, gets compromised by other tight abdominal muscles. Our stomachs in general tend to store mental tension and therefore can use regular massage. If you feel shy about getting this area worked, consider how relaxed you might feel afterwards. Massage of the abdomen also helps with tight sore back.

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Body alignment effects your quality of life a lot. Misalignment actually causes chronic tension and lack of flexibility, although it can also work vice versa. Chronic tension means you feel chroniclly tight and not even realize it. Often this leads to poor control over emotions and dealing with life’s daily challenges. At the end of the day you may feel exhausted and manicy or depressed. Your tense body wastes a lot more energy than one that is able to remain relaxed. That means you may have a need to eat more but also have less energy. Lacking flexibility offers its challenges too. It means you set yourself up for injuries. You probably suffer from lack of balance which makes falls more likely. A flexible body has a much easier time flexing and molding to an unexpected physical challenge, where as a tense body tends to wear a “brace” which “cracks” under pressure.

How Massage Helps Alignment

Myofascial massage works all of the body, with particular emphasis on large muscle groups of hips and pelvis, thorax and back. However, every restricted muscle group gets worked from head to toe. Myofascial technique does not glide and knead and requires several sessions in order to have adequate time to work all aberated areas. Sometimes certain area need to be worked a few times.

Mainataining Alignment After Massage

Massage, especially myofascial release offers considerable improvement to overall body alignment. To really make a lasting change, you need to commit to a series of these. After that you can wait and see how your body handles and maintains your new structure. With care and diligence, you may maintain the effects of this work many months following its completion. It takes listening to your body, which means being senstitve to and correcting bad posture and body mechannics. It also takes being careful not to overwork and exhaust yourself. Many people will be ok with a ten session treatment once a year, given they take some charge over their habits and lifestyle.

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You may think of getting a massage as a relaxing time. Your body, however, will likely remain pretty tense if tense is what youy are most of the time. It takes conscious effort to send relaxation throughout your body. Just like your hands likely remain locked around the steering wheel while you are stopped at a light, your body stands guard for whats coming next. However, you can be resonably assured that during your massage hour none of this tenstion will come in handy, so practice reminding yourself to relax completly in those brief moments. After all isnt tension closely related to stress, which is the main cause of all diseases?

Tense During Massage?

Are you a tense person? Do you hands clench when sitting? Do you fidget, unable to sit still? Do you clench your jaws? If not, you might experience tension in other more subtle ways. It may sound strange, but its actually rare that a person acts truly relaxed during their massage session. The person reacts surprised “I didnt know I was so tense” as their body softens, but only briefly.

Massage Helps Tension

So far, it sounds almost pointless getting a massage for tension, since one apparently cant relax even then. However, like any bad habit, breaking the habit of chronic tension requires patience. Massage brings awareness, the first step to breaking a bad habit. Besides awareness it also offers a training session as one receives constant reminders from the therapist to relax. Regular massage sessions offer repetition, the third component of breaking a bad habit. I cant think of a more pleasant habit breaking method than receiving a massage. Can you?

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click here to book your Valentines Couples Massage Special

Massage-Best Gift!

So many of us dread having to search for that perfect gift. You might find something fantastic you want yourself, but how do you know that other person wants it? Some bad choices are puppies, clothes especially underwear, furniture and any expensive item. Guilt, embaracement and annoyance are just some unintended emotions associated with bad gifts. If you dont konw for sure, dont buy it. Like cash, a massage gift cretificate will most always light up someone’s face. Unlike cold cash, however, a massage gift certificate has a sentimental value- you are telling someone how special they really are.

Valentines Couples Massage

For Valentines you can enjoy this gift yourself by booking a couples massage. A couples Massage is just a great all around gift and will definitely set things right and help bring both of you closer together. To really impress that special person, purhcase it in the form of a gift certificate. Its easy and rewarding to give one away, in the unlikely event that your loved one doesnt like massages. Its not bulky, noisy, stinky or used no matter how long you have it.

Valentines After Massage

A Valentines massage will deffinitely make you feel rejuvinated and pampered. Its a perfect mini vacation. After your massage youll want to treat yourselves to something outdoors, because nature is naturally romantic and not overly distracting. Treat your loved one to a picnic in the park or botanical garden, or out on the water. Going to a movie maybe an ok choice but it does nothing to help you grow as a couple. Noisy restaurants will mess with the perfect sirene and relaxing atmosphere your massage helped establish.

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Who Needs Massage Often?

Good question. While some feel commited to scheduling a regular weekly or monthly session, too many others still treat massage as a spontaneous or occasional event. Usually those who dont come in regularly either dont understand the benefits of getting regular massage and/or its a financial issue. While everyone can benefit from regular massage, your daily habits, activities and ability to cope with stress will determine your optimal frequency. If you are including massage as part of your personal wellness routine, are not suffering from any susbtantial pain or lack of function from injury or body tension, your stress levels are within your norm, then once a month may be alright. On the other hand, if you goal is to achieve an improved state of wellness you really want to come in at least once a week.

Regular Massage vs Chiropractor or Acupuncture

In fact all three are part of one whole body system that originated in China thousands of years ago. Acupuncture helps with some of the more involved medical conditions by acting on internal processes and organ reflexes. The massage therapist and chiropractor share a predominantly structural and external function focus. A typical massage will relax muscles and stimulate circulation, which helps the body fall into the right alignment and stay much better aligned longer after an adjustment as oposed to skipping the massage altogether. Proper body alignment and blood flow in turn help the whole body function optimally. Massage and acupuncture both have a calming effect on the mind during the treatment. Calming effect tends to linger over the next few days and helps people get a good night’s sleep, a vital part of achieving wellness. While some people may love getting regular acupuncture and massage as needed, most people will actually find acupuncture most beneficial for a special problem until it resolves, while massage and/or chiropractor together offer a great way to maintain good health and help avoid costly medications and hospital visits.

Massage too Often

Im envious of you asking that question:) Seriously, though only temporarily, it is possible to get a massage too often. Generally if you feel some soreness from a previous massage session, postpone your next visit. Massage works the body in a similar way to a work out. As part of a workout fibers get broken and rebuilt, same with massage. Massage also stretched stiff muscles, fascia and tendons, which may require some recovery. Once your body becomes accustomed to receiving regular massage it will stop feeling sore, so you can enjoy a massage as often as you like. Sometimes medical massages are prescribes as a sequence of 10 sessions once every 2-3 days and then the sequence is repeated a year later. For someone who has already achieved a state of wellness, a maintenance frequency of more than 2-3 times a week may safely be considered pampering and there is nothing wrong with that. You deserve to treat yourself and your body that works so hard to keep you happy and vibrant. Massage just may be that perfect healthful indulgence!

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Massage Chairs and Self Help Gadgets

How should I start? I am a fan of various self help massage gadgets, but they are not all equal. First and foremost, you should be able to keep you body comfortable throught you treatment. It defeats the purpose to be awkwardly tensing your arm behind your shoulder blade trying to knead out that same tention and creating more of it in the process. I have favored one and then another tool, and here are some things I have discovered. A good quality massage chair still costs a pretty penny, but worth it if you seriously plan on spending any amount of time in it. you want the one that offers rolling, shaking, compressions, even petrissage if available, and has several automated sequences so that you can press one button and then relax and enjoy the variety. Having said that I feel like Ive had enough of even the best chair after no more than 15 minutes.

Get yourself a Tibetan applicator, another great tool and possibly my number one choice. A close cousin called the spoonk mat has become pretty popular and available in store and online. This kind of mat stimulates multiple points at the same time, and since it works with your own body weight , you can have precise control over the amount of pressure. Besides imroved blood circulation, I havent found an established answer to just what system in the body is being treated with this therapy. However, it does seem clear that some myofascial release occurs, and that means your muscles, skeleton and organs all benefit.

Self Massage between Massage Sessions

Its a good question whether or not you need a massage if you have great tools to work with. Hypothetically you could skip human touch altogether. You can get rid of muscle tenion and spasms, headaches and misalignment with the tools I just mentioned. However, human touch still has a lot more to offer in addition to what you may be doing at home, including the unlimited kinds of styles and techniques, energic elements from your therapist’s biomagnetic field, assisted stretches, broadening and lengthening of muscles with ashiatsu, and the whole artistry of experience that keeps massage enjoyable over a course of the whole hour and makes you want more. jUst saying, but you might find your self looking forward to getting off of that spoonk mat at the very beginning and certainnly after a little while.

Professional Self Massage

Self massage can offer a lot of benefit between massage appointments and especially when you have to skip your regular appointment. If you do plan on substituting an occasional massage appointment with your own devices, please keep in mind a few helpful tips. First, keep you focus on the therapy throught the treatment. If you become completely distracted with a things like phone calls, reading, typing, you may be unaware when you start to accidentaly press with wrong kind of pressure or in the wrong spot, making your session useless. start with 10-15 minute sessions, and build if necessary. A friend of mine indured weeks of severe foot pain after treating her achy foot to one of those foot massagers for one whole hour instead of the recommended 15 minutes. She was obviously also preoccupied with other things or probably fell asleep because that repetative rolling action doesnt do much to keep a curious mind engaged and doent care for input from its recipient. unless you are using a sofisticated machine that is programmed to carry you thru a a customizable routine and that turns off automatically, these tips will most deffinitely help make your self massage one the best quality alone times you have ever had. Now what tool will you start with?

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“Hurts Bad” Massage

First of all, pressure preference seems like a very personal decision. While I prefer not to suffer thru any kind of discomfort during my session, you might actually expect to feel pain, or otherwise you feel like you didnt get your money’s worth. Most people fall in the in-between category, those who desire or at least dont mind that “hurts good” feel with plenty of pure relaxation to fill in the rest. Having said that, not all pressure that hurts is good, obviously. In fact, to help qualify just how good a pressure is, there is an inverse relationship between the amount of pressure and the speed with which its applied. Also, that ratio varies depending on the part of the body worked. You just cant speed over the front of one’s neck with any degree of
pressure, like you do over some plump succulent thigh muscle. Any work done without oil or lotion requires slow meticulous pressure.

Dealing with Too Much Pressure

If you ever feel in doubt about the pressure, let your therapist know right away. While he or she should be able to adjust technique by tuning to your body, be your best judge of your own personal sensitivities. If you do decide to brave it at that moment, remember to focus on your breath. Intense pressure or full range type stretches can make your body will feel on edge. It will naturally want to brace against the unknowns by tensing up. You want to supercede that impulse: consciously relax that whole area and lengthen, exhale as slowly and completely as possible.
Hopefully, thanks to your intake form you can let go and simply indulge yourself to exactly what you wanted.

“No Pain No Gain” Massage Myth

What? Im not sure how that phrase became so ubiquitous, but I find it simply not true. While I believe there is some truth to “hurt good” depending on what you define as pain in that context, pure pain in its own right is no gain at all. Its most likely an injury. Pain induces the body’s reflexive reaction to constrict and tense up and thats simply counterproductive to a good massage. A deep tissue massage requires considerable amount of progressive superficial work before the body is sufficiently warmed up to recieve deep pressure. When properly warmed up, the body welcomes deep pressure, no force necessary. Trigger point work tends to induce pain, but your mind is able to accept it and relax. This kind of static pressure takes all the guess work out of where pressure will head next. Now your mind can calmly assess this well defined spot and relax with it.

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