Massage and Movement
What is it that usually causes you to look up your nearest massage therapist? Most of the time, it’s probably a pain that was caused by some sort of movement, or too much movement. When you come to see us and ask, “what are things I can do at home to feel better,” and my answer to that question is always the same, “move!"
Why would you tell people to move when it was movement that caused the pain, you ask? Some of the top causes of muscular pain is from over use, and lack of movement. (https://www.mayoclinic.org/symptoms/muscle-pain/basics/causes/sym-20050866) When you repeat a motion or motions for prolonged periods, over time your muscles create constant tension. When there is a lack of movement and lack of use, our muscles and joints become weaker and can cause an increase in pain. How do we win? We just keep on moving!
For most, our jobs require either long periods of sitting or standing with little movement in between. Going home to continue sitting and being sedentary is not going to immediately cause issues of pain. Pain comes over time of something being a constant; constant sitting, constant standing, constant repetitive motion. We never notice after the first week, it’s not until months or years in to something that we notice it and begin to wonder how it happened.
One of the reasons I became a certified personal trainer is so that I could encourage our patient’s to continue moving at home. When necessary, we will give stretches and exercises to perform at home that will be beneficial to helping your muscles continue working at their best. Lifting objects above your head or pulling boxes down frequently at work? At Complete Wellness Therapy we can give you shoulder, arm, chest and upper back strengthening workouts to help your muscles prepare for the daily activities they will be performing. In the same session, we can give you stretches for all the same muscles to make sure that you can try to keep them as relaxed as possible while you’re at home.
Our personal favorite way to defend against stiff, tense muscles? Massage, of course! Along with all the movements we can help you perfect, we can rejuvenate your muscles with a massage session. Muscles that are worked daily are quickly restored by massage therapy sessions. Not only does massage help restore our muscles after working them, it helps to keep us flexible for the different and strenuous movements our body takes on daily. Massage can help keep the same, or increase, our joints range of motion (ROM). Our ROM is our joints ability to move through their specific planes of motion. The more easily we can move through our ROM the more confident we are in our bodies to move painlessly through them daily.
You can find videos and pictures of our techniques being used during sessions, videos of some of our favorite strengthening workouts, and our favorite stretches on our Instagram page here. Whether you want to be able to perform your daily activities easier, or just help your muscles get some relief from their daily routine, set up an appointment with Complete Wellness Therapy where you can get all the tools and relief you need to live a healthy, functional daily life.