Myofascial Release Massage
Hi, this is Jay Wence of Jay Wence Massage, serving the Southern Oregon communities of Ashland, Talent, Phoenix, Medford, and Jacksonville. Ruch and Applegate residents, you all come on by too!
Let’s talk about fascia!
Myofascial release massage, myofascial treatment work, and structural integration are all therapeutic massage techniques that I offer which specifically work with and alter the anatomical myofascial system of the human body. Fire cupping and gua-sha, which are other services I also provide, also alter the fascial body as well. So what is the myofascial system of the body? What is a myofascial massage? Myofascial means muscular/ fascial. Beyond that things get tricky.
The myofascial system (and for that matter, massage in general) are inherently unable to be thoroughly studied empirically via the scientific method because the fascial system and any sort of change to it are not duplicable. Western science employs blind case studies and multiple experiments over control groups. It is not possible to duplicate a massage.
Just like you can never step in the same river twice (it is never ever going to be the “same” river- each instant different water molecules pass by with varying temperature and flow rates, the sky and clouds above are constantly changing, aquatic flora and fauna, and birds- all constantly changing) just so with massage: you could try, but you could never really offer the same massage twice. And, horrors, in the therapeutic massage world, why would you want to?
While human bodies tend to present and function in more-or-less similar manners, like everything else in the cosmos, everybody and everybody’s body are constantly transitioning from one state to another. Each individual person’s body every day, every moment is different. The myofascial system of the body is especially in constant flux! That is its job! And each person’s body should be treated wholly as new with each session.
Even attempting to offer the same massage twice would sacrifice its relevance- if, that is, massage is trying to solve for decreasing pain, increasing functionality and range-of-motion, aligning the body’s presentation (how our body IS, without us doing things to adjust it) towards optimal, and stewarding the body into a state of balance- left to right, and front to back- where we are more comfortable in our being. And that right there is a good definition of a key difference between a Swedish style spa massage, where the goals are to decrease stress and increase relaxation, and therapeutic myofascial work:
Therapeutic, myofascial massage techniques attempt to decrease stress and increase relaxation, while also attempting to decrease pain, increase functionality and range-of-motion, align the body’s presentation towards optimal, and steward the myofascial system into a state of balance- left to right, and front to back- where we are comfortable in our being.
The inert (as in cadaverous) fascial system of the body as a physical construct has been studied fairly thoroughly via dissection. Exhibits like https://bodyworlds.com/freia/ offer a 3-D, whole body display of the fascial system. There is not yet the imaging, that I know of, to study a individual person’s fascial system in real time: Licensed Massage Therapists have to assess and palpate and work with it on the go, as a system.
Ida Rolf was a trailblazer in regards to the study of the myofascial system; it is unlikely that the current conversations and research regarding fascia would be happening without her efforts. Ida Rolf also developed specific massage techniques to treat the fascial system. But check this connotation from the Wikipedia article about her:
“Structural integration is a pseudoscience and its claimed benefits are not substantiated by medical evidence.[14][15]”
Humbly, I would submit that the scientific method cannot substantiate what is an inherently non-duplicable system of the body, and, the above claim, in quotes, from my perspective, dings medical evidentiary findings much more than it disproves Ida Rolf’s efficacy. After all, Western science is just now “finding” the “Interstitium” to much hullabaloo, additionally, from the Western perspective, somewhat “discovering” the veracity of acupuncture meridians despite The Yellow Emperor's Classic of Medicine having been published and in use since somewhere between the 4th century BC and the 3rd century AD. Just saying, Western science has a lot of catching up to do.
And so, if Ida Rolf is a pseudo-scientist, that leaves us therapeutic, Licensed Massage Therapists (LMT’s) who follow in her footsteps, who studied with her, or the now generations of her students, as inherent researchers. We are bodywork pioneers! Treatment by treatment pushing the boundaries of how to to treat the body as a whole. Because, this is important: what Ida Rolf offered to the world of massage was HOLISTIC STRATEGY! Spa style massage, from my perspective, too readily offers up answers- working from a set pattern that might be somewhat universal to each client seen, attempt to work symmetrically to decrease muscular tension and increase relaxation.
By contrast to that overly generalized definition of spa massage, and solely in my own words, I think what studying Ida Rolf’s work- or the descendent work of structural integration offers- is an open minded questioning:
if there is held muscular tension, or a disbalanced, for instance, pelvic presentation: how did that get there, and what vectors of force or presets could we relieve to help to solve for some of that; and, if that were released, how would that change the entire body as a whole system?
Such that, each massage then becomes an openminded questioning about possibilities, an exploration of potentiality! So exciting!
I frequently get asked about the difference between deep tissue massage and myofascial massage. For myself at least, deep tissue massage (which I do as necessary) merely implies the pressure that is used over the course of a massage, while myofascial massage implies the use of a comprehensive strategy, (as expressed just above in italics) rather than the use of force.
Which brings us back to, after so so many, many words and digressions to the question of:
What is the myofascial system of the body?
A simple answer is:
The myofascial system of the body is the porous, fibrous part of the body which- while mobile- scaffolds and holds each individual organ and muscle group and skeletal system, and forms an interconnected web or matrix with all other parts of the body, connecting and bridging both the somatic (actions under our voluntary control- like flexion or extension) body and the autonomic body (the parts of us like our heart which we do not consciously control).
Got it? Easy!
And tricky then to study empirically! But, unlike the Higgs-Bosun particle, aka the god particle, as far as I know the smallest bit of matter known to humans (physicists correct me nicely if you must) which when split by particle accelerator has to be believed in to conduct experiments on it (physicists correct me nicely if you must), we can alter some and then therefore all (since it connects to everything else) (hence the throwing in here of over-my-paygrade references to dark matter structures of the universe, physicists correct me nicely if you must) of your myofascial system on the massage table. And talk about it while we work on it.
Don’t even get me started on the science I learned during my expedition to see and walk on the earth’s mantle at Gros Morne National Park in Newfoundland (the mantle moves under potential explosion events like the Yellowstone Super Volcano and stops them from occurring, almost as if the mantle was sentient, protective… (geologists correctly me nicely if you must).
The last two paragraphs are humor at my expense- I acknowledge my utter lack of expertise, and am in on the joke on me! My requisite body of knowledge, more than twenty thousand hours of massage given thus far only makes me a pseudo-scientist explorer like Ida Rolf. And while I do not profess to be anywhere near as learned as Ida Rolf, I am decent at what I do and would love the opportunity to explore with you what is basically non-provable, or even definable as a body of knowledge, but, nonetheless, what can be worked with and helped as a system of the body. Even your body.
We can diligently utilize therapeutic, myofascial massage techniques to decrease stress and increase relaxation, while also attempting to decrease pain, increase functionality and range-of-motion, align the body’s presentation towards optimal, and steward the myofascial system into a state of balance- left to right, and front to back- where you are more comfortable in your being.
If you’d like to explore this further during a massage session, please reach out for an appointment: jaywencemassage@gmail.com