Allie Boy Robinson

If you have been in a work related accident in the past or have been living with pain for decades now, maybe you need to learn what’s involved with this specific branch of massage specialty.

While massage in general may be used for relaxation…NMT or Neuromuscular massage is designed especially to help you deal with your pain. Most of us don’t think much about our nervous systems. We tend to take them for granted. But they actually have a direct impact on not only the amount of tension in our muscles…but the amount of pain that we can actually endure.
Whereas a run of the mill “relaxation” massage will work on the general areas of your back…NMT is a deep tissue massage that addresses individual specific muscles, ligaments, connective tissue & tendons that are often would never be addressed in a usual relaxation type of massage.

Would you like to know what happens next?

First the client will sit in a a chair specifically made for receiving massages. Thumbs, fingertips and elbows are the tools of choice for the massage therapist to explore every fiber tissue looking for bands of muscle fibers that are tighter than the the others. These result in troubles such as hyper tonicity and ischemia. Hypertonicity is basically a fancy word for too much tension in your bodies muscles. Isechemia is mainly another word for a restriction of your bodies blood flow in that area.

These areas will be worked until they cooperate or relax. NMT will boost blood flow, diminish their pain and in fact release pressure on nerves caused by past soft tissue and muscle trauma.
Sometimes people ask why a therapist is working “over there” when it seems to hurt “over here”. The justification is Neuromuscular massage eases the letting go of trigger points and intense knots of tense muscle that in turn release pain in other areas of the body that are linked by the same muscle. This is known as “Referred Pain”. For example: Addressing a stressed trigger point in your back…could help release pain in your shoulder or even alleviate pounding headaches.

What Does This Tell You About Your Massage Therapist?

Think about it. This means that your neuromuscular therapist must be profficient in Several disciplines including:
The physiology of the bodies nervous system
Its relation on the muscular and skeletal systems.
Is educatedin the field of kinesiology
Is skilled in biomechanics
Is schooled in how to work in a clinical or medical environment

What Are The Benefits Of Neuromuscular Massage?

Neuromuscular Therapy will be used to address each of the five elements that cause pain in everyone of us:
Ischemia: We discussed a bit about this one already. Isechemia is basically a deficiency of blood supply to soft tissues which results in hypersensitivity to touch.

Trigger Points: These are highly aggrevated points in muscles, which refer pain to other parts of the body. Previously we discussed about how relaxing a trigger point in your left upper back could relax or stop those horrible throbbing headaches. (Even though you might not have connected the two together before)

Nerve Compression: This is basically strain on a nerve caused by any of the following:

* Soft tissue
* Cartilage
* Bone

Postural Distortion: This is an imbalance of the muscular system as a result of the movement of the body off the longitudinal and horizontal planes. This is a another way of explaining your body every now and then needs a muscle alignment just like your car needs one after hitting too many potholes!

Biomechanical Dysfunction: This corresponds to the imbalance of the muscular skeletal system due to bad habits like these:

* Poor lifting habits
* Incorrect golf swing
* Awful tennis stroke
* Incorrect typing posture

If you feel that you might benefit from Neuro-muscular Massage therapy, give your local massage therapist a call and ask if they focus on this form of massage therapy. After a session or two I think you will be amazed with the way you feel.

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Greg Sawyer is an Atlanta Massage Therapist for over 12 years now
Learn more about Atlanta neuromuscular massage at his website.