Worry and anxiety are being recognized for their major role in health problems. The number one cause of death in America is heart disease. Auto-immune issues combined are most often not life threatening, but can severely compromise one’s quality of life. Stress is widely considered to be the number one cause of heart disease, and […]
Tensegrity & Bodywork
The word ‘Tensegrity’ was coined by Buckminster Fuller, the guy who designed the geodesic dome. Tensegrity is a combination of the words ‘tension’ and ‘integrity’ and it describes a structure that gets its stability and its balance from the tensions placed within it, as opposed to most buildings that get their structural integrity from piling […]
Intrinsic/Extrinsic
Intrinsic/Extrinsic Deeper muscle fibers closer to the joints stabilize the joint more than move it (intrinsic); more superficial muscle fibers move bones around the joints more than stabilize them (extrinsic) I read somewhere in my research when a person is under a general anesthetic that all the skeletal muscles in the body completely turn off […]
Breath & Movement: Psoas and Diaphragm Independence
I have traditionally suggested to students that they think of psoas and diaphragm as a single functional unit, that psoas and diaphragm are continuations of each other. This was based on practical experience as well as theoretical physiology. My practical experience was that in basically every client there was tightness and often sensitivity/pain in both […]
Case Study – Knee Injury
So I thought a case study now and then would make good blogs. Check out this one… The client is a 63 year-old male in good health. He sustained 2 knee injuries (same knee – the right) playing college football which required surgery. Back then the repair work was much more invasive than it is […]
ACL Injuries and Dynamic Tensegrity
A couple of months ago there was an increase in ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) sprains and tears among NBA players; it’s a good time to review the LMD SportsMassage take on ACL damage. To begin let’s look at the players. The ACL and the PCL (posterior cruciate ligament) are deep in the center of the […]
Scar Tissue Massage Technique
Scar Tissue Massage employs three basic massage technique concepts: depth, pressure, and movement. Depth refers to progressively deeper layers of soft tissue organized according to fascial or connective tissue planes. These planes, or layers, reflect tissue movement in terms of how the planes serve the range of motion in an area: free or restricted. Fascial […]
Scar-Tissue Massage Research
This technique effectively reduces adhesions in the scar-tissue matrix resulting in accelerated return to full muscle function and freer range of motion. Research on wound healing supports the efficacy of scar-tissue massage and points toward the benefits of the inclusion of this technique in post-injury and post-surgical situations. Scar-tissue formation, while absolutely necessary to the […]
Hypertonicity Defined, Effects Explained
The function of muscle tone is primarily two-fold: to stabilize the joints both statically and dynamically and to circulate fluids through the body’s tissues, functioning as the ‘return heart’. ‘Statically’ refers to stabilizing the joints with the body at rest: sleeping, sitting, where levels of muscle tone required to stabilize the joints would be relatively […]
The Physiology of Selfishness vs Self-Sabotage, Part Two
As we established in Part One, selfishness means I want the most for me, or more to the point, I choose the most for me. Furthermore, true selfishness requires that I consider other people and circumstances in order to get the most from them. Now we’ll look at how this plays out physiologically in the […]