Hi Everyone! Jenn here at ECWC. Thank you for your interest in our inaugural blog post that will describe the massage therapy services we offer as a wellness clinic. We have a health and wellness team of manual therapists who are passionate about providing the highest level of client care. Each of our practitioners has a unique and enduring skill set. The types of treatment we offer complement one another, and we have the ability to collaborate under one roof to support your sense of wellness and well-being. Our treatments are client focused, and through strong communication we are able to empower clients to actively guide their treatment path under the expert care of our manual therapists. Allow me to break down the services we have on offer at our location, and scratch below the surface of how they might enhance your health and wellness practices.
HOW DOES MASSAGE THERAPY WORK?
Registered massage therapy is sought for many different reasons – its versatility is quite profound. Whether you are seeking massage therapy for acute (new), chronic (longer term) or preventative (let’s not wait until things get really bad) care, a registered massage therapist can help you determine which approach will be most appropriate for your needs. Perhaps you’ve heard of a deep tissue massage and have been told that that approach is most effective because it comes with an intensity that we tend to attribute with change. The truth is, deep tissue massage can be very effective under the right circumstances, but it is not always the most appropriate approach.
Our muscles are living, breathing, pliable, dynamic structures. Through the art of subjective and objective palpation, postural assessment, observation, special testing and range of motion assessment, a massage therapist can determine the tissue condition and the given stage of the healing process. This informs the best possible massage therapy techniques to apply to the tissue to produce the desired outcome for the client. Sometimes less is truly more. Rather than wrestle the tissue into submission (rarely receiving a warm welcome), we coax the tissue in order to build trust and produce positive neurological feedback between the pressure the massage therapist uses and the structures being treated. Based on that assessment, your massage therapist might determine that a gentler, more subtle technique and approach would be better received.
WHAT DOES MASSAGE THERAPY DO?
Building a relationship with you and your tissue is important to the success of treatment outcomes. Massage therapy is effective for addressing many soft tissue and connective tissue concerns. Full body massage might be used to evoke a relaxation response for the nervous system, decreasing your fight-flight-freeze mechanism and activating your rest-digest-heal functions. You might seek a registered massage therapist to help you recover from your movement practices and chosen activities. Perhaps you are seeking massage therapy to support your prenatal and postnatal journey, or because you struggle with the daily postural strain of sitting and computing for long hours. We all have daily, repetitive postures that build patterns and accumulate tension in our tissue. This is perfectly normal and healthy, but sometimes we tip the scales into a place where additional support, such as massage therapy, is needed to recalibrate our muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints.
The support of massage therapy treatment work because it increases natural tissue circulation cycles, decreases the presence of adhesions (those “crunchy”, textured bits in the muscles), realigns muscle fibres that have gone astray, releases activated myofascial trigger points (tender knots that are a common source of pain, headaches, and irritation), and alleviates compensation in the body (when muscles designed to do specific work are fatigued or less capable, so neighbouring muscles must step in to do work they are not designed to do). That last detail can lead to a pattern of use that impedes our sense of health and wellness because our musculoskeletal structures are overwhelmed.
WHY CHOOSE MASSAGE THERAPY?
There are many manual therapies out there to choose from – sometimes it can feel overwhelming! Massage therapy plays a role in wellness alongside many other modalities and forms of treatment. If you are looking to connect with your body in a new and empowering way, or perhaps increase your awareness of where you hold tension and how to prevent this from escalating, massage therapy treatment can start and facilitate these inner conversations. If you’ve had consistent aches and pains that never seem to go away, or if you find yourself experiencing anxiousness, generalized physical fatigue and difficulty resting, massage therapy can help to reframe the inner dialogue around these concerns. We encourage our clients to be curious about sensation and ask questions during treatment. Any morsels we can impart that will help you to better connect with your sense of well-being, and empower you with a broader understanding how your body functions, is a massage therapist’s dream come true!