Smoothing Out Those Painful Knots

We all know when we need a massage – perhaps we’ve overdone it somehow or been injured. We feel tired and achy. Often a muscle feels tight or bunched up under the skin. Our range of motion may be impaired and it may hurt to move.

Knots result when a muscle becomes stressed or tight. They prevent the muscle from working properly or the muscle may stop working entirely. When this happens other muscles step in to take over. Eventually they also give out and another set of muscles takes over. Tension builds and other parts of the body start to react – the immune system crashes, the blood pressure rises, fight or flight sets in. This painful situation is called compensation and therapeutic massage helps in 2 ways.

In the direct, or mechanical, method the massage therapist kneads and pulls the affected muscle to directly stimulate blood flow to cleanse the toxins from the area and to relax the muscle so it can regain elasticity. Indirect responses, called reflex effects, occur when pressure is applied to specific points causing changes to occur in other parts of the body. All massage therapies use and elaborate upon one or both of these approaches. The simple comforting touch that may have been the worlds first medical treatment has grown to be a well-respected and complex healing system.

Therapeutic massage dates back at least 5 thousand years to China from where it spread to other ancient countries such as India, Japan, Egypt and Persia. During the middle ages folk healers and midwives practiced massage and records show massage was a respected medical practice during the Renaissance. In the 1800s Per Henrik Ling of Sweden (the father of physical therapy) adapted the Chinese methods of rubbing/ kneading, and the system of meridians, or pressure points, not only to relax local muscles but also to stimulate and improve the function of internal organs. This type of massage came to the U.S. in the late 1800s. It was used by nurses during World Wars I and II, but was used most frequently by athletes.

The 1960s awakened the need for alternative methods of disease prevention and natural healthcare. Massage schools were born in the 1970s and 80s and states started to develop licensing requirements for schools and therapists. Massage became accepted as a healing art and tool for stress reduction. Therapeutic massage is now an established profession often requiring hundreds of hours of study and rigorous testing for certification.