Massage has to hurt for it to work, right? We need to dig into muscles and break up scar tissue to prevent future pain, right?
Not really, no.
Despite some claims to the contrary, there’s no evidence that massage does anything to permanently change the structure of your body in a single session. We don’t “bust up knots,” and we can’t stretch fascia. Connective tissue and scar tissue are some of the strongest structures in your body, so any attempt to disrupt them is more likely to damage surrounding tissue. If you’ve ever felt battered and bruised after someone “worked out a knot,” it’s because they managed to break some capillaries and inflame the area.
We also can’t change your posture by digging into your upper back. The resting length of your muscles is determined by your nervous system, so we can’t manually lengthen them in any lasting way (not without employing a meat tenderizer). Modern research into stretching shows that we’re not actually stretching the muscle fibers into a new shape, we’re just convincing the nervous system to tolerate greater length.
Despite our inability to smoosh you into new shapes, massage is still effective for pain and some types of joint dysfunction.
This is likely similar to how stretching really works. We’re having a conversation with your nervous system. Convincing it that your muscles don’t need to have so much tension, and that your pain sensitivity doesn’t need to be so high. Receiving an hour of therapeutic contact that doesn’t exceed your pain threshold can let your brain know that “maybe I don’t need this spasm/tightness/sensitivity after all.”
This is the secret sauce of massage, and why it can be effective for issues that can’t receive direct contact, such as knee osteoarthritis. By regularly receiving an hour of pain-free stimulus, the nervous system can calm down. Once that happens, the muscles can follow.
If you’d like to give this pain-free method of massage a try you can schedule a session with me here.
Thanks, and I hope to see you soon!
Tara
