About Myofascial Release

Myofascial Release is a highly effective form of advanced manual therapy that helps reduce or eliminate pain and makes it easier to move. Many different techniques are incorporated into Myofascial Release treatments.  Myofascial Release consistently:

Myofascial Release is critical for relieving chronic pain.

It feels like very slow, sustained, usually gentle compression combined with a specific method of stretching that optimizes your body’s structural alignment by balancing the tone and length of the myofascial system. Myofascial Release is highly customized and feels to many like a gentle, therapeutic rack, creating permanent change to your dense, shortened, painful-producing soft tissue. It is very different from massage therapy.

myo = muscle appears pink in the images below

fascia = a type of connective tissue glistens and appears clear and whitish in the images below

Images of living human fascia courtesy of French hand surgeon Dr. Jean-Claude Guimberteau. 

Inflammation produces restricted myofascial tissue

Inflammatory responses from habitual poor posture, overuse, underuse, surgery, major trauma or many smaller injuries over time cause the web-like connective tissue to reinforce itself. It does this by becoming denser, adhered and often growing thicker through a process commonly known as fibrosis. These effects combine to form restricted fascial tissue that can deepen and spread throughout your body over time. Fascial restrictions transform the naturally wavy, wet and flexible fascia within these areas into something quite hard and stiff. It becomes dried out and leathery or ropey. Left to fester over time, fascial restrictions can become as hard as bone. 

In laboratory testing, fascia has been shown to have a tensile strength of up to 2000 pounds/square inch. Likewise, fascial restrictions are incredibly strong. It has also been proven that the weight of a single human hair placed on a nerve impairs the nerve’s rate of conduction. It takes no stretch of the imagination to appreciate the devastating impact fascial restrictions can impose on your nervous system. But myofascial restrictions don’t only affect nerves.

Fascial restrictions are indiscriminate. They form according to your posture and how you use (or don’t use) your body. The imbalanced tightening fascial restrictions create in parts of this whole-body system quite easily pull your body out of its optimal alignment and into compensation, while reducing ease and range of movement. Joints, muscles, nerves, organs, blood vessels and cells get compressed by this fascial tightening. This can produce inflammation and symptoms right around the tight area(s), but also commonly produces seemingly unrelated symptoms in areas well away from the restricted area(s).

Seemingly unrelated symptoms in areas well away from the restricted area(s)? Yes! This is possible and indeed common because fascia is a three-dimensional tissue spreading continuously throughout the body head to toe, front to back. When an area within this web of soft tissue binds down and hardens, it produces a drag-like effect throughout the entire system, easily compressing or pulling joints out of alignment, impinging nerves, compromising normal organ function, suffocating cells, or producing other symptoms above or below the restricted area.

Symptoms are usually the tip of the iceberg

All of the standardized tests, including X-Ray, MRI, CAT scan, etc fail to show fascial restrictions. Most forms of therapy seek to treat symptoms as the beginning and end of the problem without addressing their underlying cause in the fascial system. Of course quieting symptoms has value. But think about what happens when one hole is plugged in a compromised dam. Before long, the next area of weakness springs a leak. The same thing happens in the body. Not long after one symptom is brought under control a new one seems to show up. This explains why so many people complain about how much they hate their aging bodies. They feel their bodies have betrayed them as they wait in line at one specialist’s office and then the next for medications to control their symptoms, which are usually only part of the problem. It doesn’t need to be this way. Your body does have an amazing capacity to heal itself. By restoring freedom to the fascial system, your self-healing capacity is optimized. Myofascial Release gently and safely helps resolve even long-standing chronic conditions.

Myofascial Release is not only effective for those dealing with pain and dysfunction. Owen has enjoyed facilitating a profound sense of freedom and ease with people of all ages including: newborns, children, adults, the elderly, those moving into the dying process, and even animals. It’s an incredible resource for optimizing your health. Are you ready to feel better?