Active Release Technique Therapy

A.R.T. When I first heard about this, I thought it was just a new fad in massage therapy - a way of sucking in people, kind of like it's fitness cousin of workout fads: the weighted hula hoop, stripercise (I tried it for a month but kept breaking the pole), the body blade, and tae bo.

stoooooooooopid

This massage therapy technique really works, or at least for me it has. I went last fall when I was having issues with my IT band and quad muscle group - it was tight and sore. Two sessions was enough for me. It relieved the pain and inflexibility. I recently went back this past week to have some work done on my hamstring - I've had a knot and tightness in it since the Mt. St. Marie training weekend. Sarah, at Montgomery Massage Therapy, spent about a half hour on Monday and another half hour yesterday working on it. It's gold now. Gold I tells ya'.

ART is a patented, state of the art soft tissue system/movement based massag technique that treats problems with muscles, tendons, ligaments, fascia and nerves. Headaches, back pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, shin splints, shoulder pain, sciatica, plantar fasciitis, knee problems, and tennis elbow are just a few of the many conditions that can be resolved quickly and permanently with ART. These conditions all have one important thing in common: they are often a result of overused muscles.

How do overuse conditions occur?

Over-used muscles (and other soft tissues) change in three important ways:

• acute conditions (pulls, tears, collisions, etc),
• accumulation of small tears (micro-trauma)
• not getting enough oxygen (hypoxia).

Each of these factors can cause your body to produce tough, dense scar tissue in the affected area. This scar tissue binds up and ties down tissues that need to move freely. As scar tissue builds up, muscles become shorter and weaker, tension on tendons causes tendonitis, and nerves can become trapped. This can cause reduced range of motion, loss of strength, and pain. If a nerve is trapped you may also feel tingling, numbness, and weakness.

What is an ART treatment like?

Every ART session is actually a combination of examination and treatment. The ART provider uses his or her hands to evaluate the texture, tightness and movement of muscles, fascia, tendons, ligaments and nerves. Abnormal tissues are treated by combining precisely directed tension with very specific patient movements.

These treatment protocols - over 500 specific moves - are unique to ART. They allow providers to identify and correct the specific problems that are affecting each individual patient. ART is not a cookie-cutter approach.