Remedial massage therapists help the body’s own healing process when muscles and tendons become tight, impaired or damaged. Manual treatment techniques are used in remedial massage to improve functionality, range of movement and decrease pain. Active and/or passive stretching techniques may be used in combination with massage techniques to restore movement and improve flexibility. Many positive physiological changes take place during and after remedial massage, providing the patient with effective treatment for their musculo-skeletal issues.
But more than that, massage is a very powerful tool because it treats the whole person. Massage provides a fantastic de-stress experience which helps to treat and prevent soft tissue dysfunction and postural imbalances that occur in our day to day lives.
Physiological Benefits of Remedial Massage:
- massage stimulates the circulation of blood, increasing both the supply and removal of lymph, oxygen and nutrient substances on a cellular level,
- as massage strokes push blood through capillaries and arterioles, it has a stretching effect on the vessel walls, which can help increase their size, capacity and function,
- muscle contraction provides the movement of lymphatic fluid through the vessels and massage greatly stimulates the flow, allowing the filtering any toxins,
- massage prevents excessive scar tissue formation by stopping cells binding together,
- friction techniques can break down the adhesions by breaking down the adhesive bonds
- stimulates the nerve receptors in the tissues, which control tissue tension
- massage calms the peripheral nervous system to ease pain and discomfort;
- longitudinal strokes can breakdown and re-align scar tissue facilitating improvement in tissue function
- the successful treatment of trigger points, eliminating direct and referring pain patterns common in headaches, SMJ, sciatica, shoulder pain.
