Muscle Massage Therapies for Pain Relief

Many people, especially in adulthood, experience different kinds of physical pains which may affect our day to day activities. It doesn’t matter which part of the body aches, the feeling itself may be uncomfortable and sometimes unbearable. But fortunately there are many treatments and solutions to alleviate such discomfort.

Muscle and massage therapy is currently one of the most useful methods to deal with when it come to muscular pain, mobility and postural issues.

Muscle Therapy consists of executing diverse massage deep tissue or soft tissue techniques as well as using I.A.S.T.M tools which help treat musculoskeletal issues, injures and strains. This combination reduces inflammation and breaks up scare tissue; softening the connective tissue around the muscles and promoting circulation which also improves mobility.

Here are some advantages of muscle therapy:

• It stimulates the muscle fibres improving their functions. The muscular capillaries are also benefited because they multiply the nutrients that they contribute to the cells.
• The applied forces of theses therapies can help to soften the tissues of that zone.
• It mobilises the superficial layers of muscles and fascia (a group of connective tissues which surround all internal parts of the body), thus improving their function.
• It is recommended for people with bad posture, sciatica, frozen shoulders, sports injuries, fibromyalgia, plantar fasciitis, headaches and tense muscles.
• It Improves relieves depressive symptoms, reduces the hormones related to stress, alleviates tension and pain, relaxes the body and improves immune function.

The Graston or I.A.S.T.M tools

I.A.S.T.M is the acronym for Instrument Assisted Soft Tissue Mobilisation and is directly associated with the Graston brand. It is a technique widely used by bodywork practitioner, osteopaths and manual therapists.

It is a manual therapy which uses specialised ergonomic tools to massage and scrape the skin smoothly.

These tools help alleviate soft tissue injuries to connective tissues, muscles, neurological tissues, and skin. It is efficient for any kind of soft tissue injuries such as repetitive stress injuries, strains, sprains, and subluxations.

The I.A.S.T.M is framed within the S.F.M (Soft Tissue Manipulation), which deals with the treatment and normalisation of connective tissues or fascia restrictions in general, caused by traumatic injuries or by repetitive micro-trauma.

The consequence of these soft tissue alterations causes pain, adhesion and degeneration of the tissue with dysfunction and restriction in the mobility.

This soft tissue mobilisation technique treats a large number of conditions including quadriceps pain, rotator cuff pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, lower back pain, shoulder pain, neck pain, and even headaches.

If you ever feel physical pain, do not doubt this method will help you to deal with them.