-
Flexibilty improvements from a massage
I'm just wondering if anyone else has experienced this…
So I got a massage yesterday from the guy I go to once a month. He does therapeutic type massage where he focuses on muscle problems and fixing them, rather than just making it feel good temporarily. Things he's fixed have made pole better and easier often enough that I usually come in with a list of things for him to "look at". Yesterday I mentioned that one of my legs is waaaaay less flexible than the other. With my left leg in front I can get all the way to the floor in the splits. With my right leg in front I'm still 6-8 inches off the floor. He started poking around on my right leg and found what he referred to as an "improper muscle adhesion". Which to my understanding means my muscles formed an improper connection to support me during some activity. He worked on it until it "released" and I immediately had more flexibility in that leg than I've ever had. And I still have that flexibility this morning.
He said that when the problem comes from an improper muscle adhesion it doesn't matter how much you stretch it's really not going to change anything and that's often where people get the impression that they're not naturally flexible (which is how I had felt about my right leg).
I'm pretty excited about this – but I was wondering if anyone else had heard of or experienced this. Is it really going to last? Thoughts?
-
2 Replies
-
Why do you think people love their foam rollers and rolfing? I tore my hamstring a few weeks back to the point where I could not even walk the next morning. Had a massage at lunch time that day and was able to walk fine after it.
-
I have definitely felt that. I used to go to a chiropractor to get ART (active release technique) done. Basically exactly what you described. It is a soft tissue manipulation (basically intense massage) that gets into the muscles, releases the tensions, and breaks up adhesions. While I loved it, because I love incredibly painful massage and the end result was so amazing to feel, it's a very passive technique overall. The massage fixes the muscle adhesions after they happen, but doesn't necessarily remove the source of the adhesions. Which means if they are due to the way you use your muscles or train your body (constant repetitive use, movement patterns, etc), they will keep coming back if you don't make changes. I don't think it's bad to get the body work done, but know that it's usually not a permanent solution in itself. I just know that every time I went in to get the work done, it was always working on the same things. Nothing ever went away long-term.
Now, if the work is done on scar tissue caused by something (a tear, etc) where the cause of the adhesion is no longer present in your body, I would expect the results from that bodywork to last much longer.
Log in to reply.