Eradicate chronic pain

Accelerate injury recovery

Restore tissue resilience

Friction Therapy involves strumming across the grain of a damaged structure such as a ligament, tendon, joint capsule, fascial sheath, or muscle belly.

The strumming action breaks up adhesive scar tissue and stimulates the production of new capillaries to nourish and clean up the micro-environment of the tissue, and the activity of fibroblast cells which lay down new collagen to restore most of the structure’s original strength and springiness.

The great majority of chronic pain can be eliminated by these means.

This method feels a little annoying, and may leave you a little sore, maybe even with a small bruise in some cases, but after a number of sessions you will notice improvement, and after a few more, the pain you were experiencing will be gone.

Ease tension

Interrupt old patterns

Process shock and trauma

Increase fluid movement

Cranio Sacral Therapy involves very light touch, which works with the tiny rhythmic motions that occur throughout the body.  Many people have found relief from a range of health issues from headaches to cerebral palsy with the help of Cranio Sacral Therapy.

CST’s theory is predicated on the idea that the fluid which surrounds the brain and spinal cord has a rhythm by which it increases and decreases in pressure, and every system throughout the body responds to this rhythm.  With practice, the rhythm can be felt and interacted with, sometimes resulting in profound benefit.

The main guiding principle of CST is to assist the process of healing that is already present within the client.

I’m currently enrolled in the Cranio Sacral Therapist certification program through the Upledger Institute.

Almost everyone in our society shares the experience of tension, somewhere in the body, that either stays, or comes and goes, always in the same area.  Thinking about this for any longer than a moment presents a burning question every time – “Why?”  Why do I have to have this pain, this tension, why won’t it go away?  I’m confronted with this frustration every day, in all the unique ways that different clients experience it at different times.

I landed in the business of resolving tension because I was not satisfied with resigning myself to chronic discomfort.  Like so many people who come to see me, I knew something about it wasn’t right.  I knew I could help myself out of the cycle, and that I could learn to help others as well.

So here and now, with my current understanding of our physiology, I want to sum up what I have learned regarding why we have chronic and recurring tension or pain.  Having studied many avenues of treatment, and many explanations as to why said treatments are effective, I’m going to focus on the one area that I have found makes the most sense, experientially as well as on paper.  From everything I’ve read and personally felt, the root and, ultimately, the solution to chronic tension lies in the nervous system.  Whether I am doing techniques learned from the myofascial, energetic, deep tissue, Swedish massage, or any other standpoint, the nervous system is the primary focus both in the information I gather, and the changes I catalyze.

The human nervous system has developed astounding complexity, to the point that we can apply our minds to the most fundamental questions of existence, but most of the work it does is still quite basic.  Every moment, all the time, as long as you live, the nervous system is continually asking and answering the same question: “Am I safe?”  No matter how tough a person is, they are enabled to continue living for the fact that they have a nervous system that is constantly assessing threats of internal and external origin.  Even those who would think of themselves as fearless, exist by virtue of what is essentially built-in fear.

So if the perpetual question is “Am I safe,” what happens when the apparent answer is “No?”

Every system of the body is constantly modulated by two “sides” of the autonomic nervous system.  The sides are called the sympathetic and the parasympathetic, but we will call them the stress brain and the rest brain for short.  The stress brain is in charge of meeting external demands, taking action, and the classic “fight or flight” response.  The rest brain is in charge of internal upkeep like digestion, tissue repair, reproduction, and immune function.  Organs and tissues in the body are linked up to both sides and behave differently according to how much input is coming from each side.  A rough analogy would be some type of machine, say an engine, that has a control with a blue wire, and a red wire.  The signal from the red wire says “increase throttle,” and the signal from the blue wire says “decrease throttle.”  Both wires could have a very strong or very week signal, but it’s the net sum of the signals that gives the final position of the throttle.  Regenerative body systems, like digestion and immunity increase their activity in response to the rest brain’s signal, and action oriented systems like the skeletal muscles increase activity in response to the stress brain’s signal.  This is why someone’s stomach might start growling a few minutes into a massage; they were under enough stress prior to the massage that their digestive system was put on hold so that resources could be devoted to the skeletal muscles, once relaxation set in, digestion resumed – audibly.

To oversimplify, when the nervous system has determined that the body is not safe, or rather, that this is not an appropriate time to rest and regenerate, it pushes all action systems in the direction of overdrive, and puts all regenerative systems closer to a pause.  Increased sympathetic tone (stress brain activity) makes the muscles of movement (skeletal muscles) more active (tension).  It also increases the likelihood that the brain will interpret a given stimulus as a threat, and therefor generate the feeling of pain (That’s right, pain is made up by your brain, it’s not a sensory input.).  This is part of what we must understand, but it does not answer the title question of this post.

So, generally speaking, more “stress” equals more tension and pain – duh.  The question of why we have recurring patterns of tension, usually in the same place, still remains.  The short answer: We are creatures of habit.  In fact, all creatures are.

Before we move on, I want to clearly define the term “Sensory-Motor.”  This refers to the function of the nervous system to feel and produce movement and position.  In addition to the classic “five senses,” we have a slew of internal senses including proprioception, which is Latin for “self sensing.”  Basically, we have nerve endings inside our muscle and connective tissues that collect information about things like length, position, tension, and pressure, and send it upstream to the central nervous system, and we have motor neurons that tell muscles to contract.  So now you will know what I’m talking about when I say “sensory,” feeling movement and position, “motor,” producing movement or muscle activity, and “sensory-motor,” all of these processes combined.  The really interesting part, and the one that’s really relevant to our question, is the part that happens upstairs in the brain; what the brain decides to do with the information from the proprioceptors, and other inputs (like memory), and what motor patterns, and other outputs (like pain), it chooses.

So the brain has something that we’ll refer to as a sensory-motor library.  It’s a library of all of the movement and position related feelings, and all the muscle firing commands that we recognize and use.  When a baby squirms around in its crib, scrunching its face, moving its tongue, grasping its fingers and toes, and generally – squirming, its doing very important work.  We’re born with a more or less empty sensory-motor library, and every time we use our skeletal muscles (or have a part of us moved by external forces) in a new way we add a volume to that library.  The first years of life are spent doing this, and it’s very straight forward to observe the development of a child’s “motor skills.”  We generally tend not to think too much about “sensory skill” development, but the two really can’t be separated.

Now that the role of the sensory-motor faculties of the nervous system are more clear, I just want to add that they do not work alone.  Every action involves, in addition to proprioceptive data and motor output, emotion, thought, memory, and meaning.  To arrive at the appropriate motor (or pain) output, our brain first considers all of these factors.  In this process the level of stress brain vs rest brain activity is, of course, key.

When you learned to brush your teeth, ride a bike, type, drive a car, write, or anything else, you were a bit shaky at first – maybe very shaky in some cases.  As a reminder of what that’s like, try brushing your teeth with your non-dominant hand.  Notice the thoughts, emotions, memories, and meanings that this action involves.  If you do this, you will be expanding your sensory-motor library by one more volume.  Imagine the “size” of a decathlete’s or modern dancer’s sensory-motor library compared to the average person’s.

For reasons that are too many to mention here, we each learn to do things in a unique way.  Handwriting is a very clear example, it’s so unique that it can be used to identify people for official documents and in investigations.  The same goes for our reactions to stress.  Stress is a fact of life, it is simply the body’s response to any given demand.  Sure it comes and goes to some degree, but it’s never eliminated while we live.  As we grow, we develop motor output patterns that correspond to different situations, feelings, memories, thoughts, etc.  If one facet of an action, say a certain emotion, is very prevalent in our lives, we will repeatedly use the motor pattern that goes along with it.  As certain patterns get used more often, they become more likely to be chosen at any time.  This is called habituation, the forming of a habit.

That knot in between your shoulders, that stiff low back, that foot that’s turned out a little more than the other, those are all motor habits, and they are all perpetuated by the brain.  Yes, the tissue adapts to these patterns, but the brain makes the decision, and to the extent that the tissues can allow, the brain can change its habits.  In a sense, we have recurring patterns of tension because that’s what we’re used to, it’s what we know to do.

The usefulness of bodywork lies in its ability to increase the adaptability of tissues, but more to the point to augment the client’s sensory-motor capacity.  To put that in more marketable terms, the point of bodywork is to help people feel better and be able to move more.

When you get up from the table after a massage or bodywork session, and feel that you have more “space” within you, or maybe feel taller, or more “grounded,” what you’re experiencing is an increase in sensory information.  You’re feeling many more tiny little parts of your structure that had been forgotten or never before sensed, and you may also be feeling new position and movement patterns (a great feeling for satiating the ever present “I want better posture” sentiment).  To evoke our metaphor once more, you have just had a whole section or floor added to your sensory-motor library.  That’s much more than the novel experience of that “spacey” feeling; it’s an opportunity to feel and move in ways that were previously not possible, and it’s a state in which you’re less likely to experience pain.  With repetition, it can be retained longer, and called upon at will.  When combined with a movement practice, I mean one where you explore new ways to move, it has even more power to transform all facets of your daily actions in the long term, that is to say, to change your life.

So, in times when you feel resigned to tension or pain, get a massage, you will feel better.  In times of exploration and questioning, get a massage, you will never feel the same.  I can attest to this, because this has been my experience, and the experience of my clients.

I’ve been drawn toward bodywork in one way or another for as long as I can remember.  A combination of two traits have steered me to this career: An irresistible urge to devote myself to personal growth, and a natural knack for body related learning. At age twelve, those two drives landed me in a martial arts class that became a five year practice.

When moving away for college promplted me to take a break from that practice, I had the chance to realize that training for violence did not serve me.  I spent the following six years using my hands-on talents for my self-built career in home improvement, but that job satisfied only my physical and financial needs.

After experiencing neck spasms that coincided with recurring life events, and getting a lot of relief and insight from seeing various bodywork professionals, I finally realized what I was made to do, and enrolled in The Lauterstein Conway School of Massage.

During my martial arts practice, an era that I still cherish, I began a learning journey that I am continuing through the healing arts.  The core of both practices is to master one’s own actions, one’s own body-mind.  In the martial arts, those skills are learned under the pretext of taking control of your opponent’s body-mind to protect people from harm.  In the healing arts, the skills are used to catalyze and support your client’s gaining greater control of their own body-mind so they can live a more healthful and joyful life.

I’m perpetually grateful for the skills I learn, and the people whose healing I have the privilege of taking part in.

Matt Arnold, LMT

Take your wellness into your own hands!

Massage is like restoring the hardware, and movement work is like updating the software.

Prevent future tension and pain, increase your coordination, move with ease, comfort, efficiency, and power.

If you already live an active lifestyle, Movement Education will enhance your performance and endurance.

Unlike typical exercise, the movement lessons you will learn are all done in a slow, comfortable fashion, with a focus on feeling the details of the movement.

If offer five to ten minute movement lessons as part of some bodywork sessions.

Ease pain and free up movement restrictions

Treat unexplained chronic pain

A lot of people think that if they feel pain somewhere, it’s because there’s something wrong with the tissue in the part of the body they feel the pain.  This is not always the case.  In fact, much chronic pain is felt in areas of the body which have no tissue damage, and no irregular muscle tension.  Even though you may feel like those muscles are tight, it is actually a feeling of pain which you are interpreting as tension, combined with an automatic limiting of your range of motion by involuntary contractions when you try to do certain movements.  This is a protective mechanism, but it can sometimes overreact.

The nerve fibers which pick up painful signals all have their outer-most ends in the skin.  By moving certain areas of the skin very gently, the entire nerve can be stimulated without the perception of any type of threat.  This resets the pain signal by replacing it with the sensation of the skin stretch and interrupts the neurological pattern that has been producing the pain and movement limitation.

Speed injury recovery, and revitalize deep muscles.

This therapy focuses on remodeling the deeper muscles and fascial tissue, as well as flushing out areas of poor circulation.  Deep Tissue Massage is perfect for those who benefit from an intense tissue overhaul.

There are so many cases in life where being of the most benefit is helped largely by just not getting in the way.  This is true in parenting, art, working in a group, psychotherapy, agriculture, government and a lot more.  In my massage practice, I have a certain way of approaching everything I do that’s based to a good extent on this idea.  I call it my “therapeutic posture,” using posture in the general sense, but including the body language sense of the word as well.

Let me break it down for you:

1. Hold the client in the highest personal regard.  That’s not much to say, but when you really apply it, it changes everything.  When I put my hands on someone they can feel this attitude.  My hands are saying “I’m here to learn from you, and to observe the very best in you, and I’m here to give you a chance to do the same.”  Side note: please don’t get the impression that I’m sanctimonious or sappy about my work.  I don’t make a big deal out of this attitude, I just do it, and as a result my touch feels great.  Back to the point: A lot of people who come to see me have tension or pain, and this involves a whole milieu of feelings usually including some embarrassment or even shame for not having total control over their body.  That embarrassed feeling is a perfect little stone for impeding the path of healing, and if I feed it in any way, I cut short that great process.
2. Hold the very best outcome of the session as possible.  Doubt is a healthy part of any endeavor; it keeps us from repeating the same ineffective methods, but doubt cannot be allowed to overshadow the possibility of total and speedy success.  It’s not realistic to either expect to fail or expect to succeed completely, the only thing that’s realistic is to include the whole spectrum of possibility in your mind, and I find it helps to favor the outermost prospect of benefit.
3. Listen totally.  This applies both literally, during the initial interview, and metaphorically as a dimension of touch.  During most conversation, while one person speaks, the other has a stream of thought that’s only partially related to what’s being said.  The listener tends to look for any bit of information that reminds them of something about their own experience so they can start talking next.  Active listening means that the listener immerses himself in the speaker’s experience and allows himself to reach a more complete understanding of the other’s perspective.  Bodywork is a conversation between two nervous systems.  If I gather only enough data with my hands to fit the client’s experience into some template, I will surely stifle their healing process.
4. Know how much the client wants to work on.  By reading so far, you can surmise that I work to help clients change a lot more than just “toxins in the muscles,” but the fact is, a lot of people just want some quick relief, and that’s fine with me.  When a client shows up who just wants “a good rub down,” it’s my job to oblige, and if they gain a deeper or more enduring benefit, all the better.  Force feeding someone a higher possibility benefits no one, but offering it without pretense creates a setting where more is possible.
5. Self care.  I’ll include two items in one here.  The first is the “oxygen mask principle,” see the safety card in your seat back compartment.  I think it’s pretty intuitive, so I’ll just say that if I’m in a good state of wellness, I can be more available to my client.  The other part of this principle applies to my body mechanics during each stroke.  If I put myself in an awkward position and labor intensively to put a certain force into the client’s body, I am over working myself and getting nothing done.  The body I’m contacting learns by example, and responds to my level of strain, so I work to eliminate strain from my own body during every movement.  Working with gravity, and with the design of my body means I can apply a great deal of pressure, if needed, without losing my sensing capability or triggering a defensive reaction in the client.
6. Know who’s in charge.  This is another two in one item.  It feels really good to have your “knots” mashed on, and this helps to flush metabolites out of areas of poor circulation, giving local functions a break and providing temporary relief, but it doesn’t change a thing in the long run.  A muscle does not relax in response to pressure or manipulation.  Muscles respond exclusively to input from the nerves.  Every knot is maintained by an output of the central nervous system.  The brain is the boss, and that’s who we have to talk to to get change.  All that is more technique theory than therapeutic posture, but it goes along with an important principle:  The client does the healing.  I do not fix anyone, but I provide, in the form of bodywork, a skillfully placed fulcrum around which a person can more easily reach their highest possible benefit.  This principle holds the other five within it, and gives rise to my opening sentence.  The most skillful therapist has, among other things, learned more and more ways to simply not impede someone’s own beneficial processes.

Any thoughts?

In honor of Zero Balancing Awareness Week and Cinco de Mayo, I will be offering Zero Balancing sessions for FREE all day this Saturday, May 5th. Zero Balancing is a combination structural and energetic manual therapy which focuses on the core foundational joints of the skeleton. It frees deeply held tensions in the physical body, and gives the client a deep connection with his/her true self, allowing him/her to more effortlessly approach life challenges. Many who receive a ZB report feeling soothed and freed up right down through the bone. This technique is subtle yet powerful, and it’s something that I personally love a lot, and am very happy to share. Whether you are new to bodywork, or you receive frequently, come and see what ZB is all about this Saturday, El Cinco de Mayo, at my Bee Caves Studio!

Click the Book Now button at the bottom of the page to sign up for your free ZB! (choose 60 min alignment from the menu).

At least once a day, I hear the question “Why is my ___ so tight?” or “Why won’t it stop hurting?”  And I’m forced to immediately disappoint the client by breaking the news to them that not only can I not pinpoint the cause of their discomfort, but no one can.  I could tell you “Well, your neck is in spasm because you hunch over a keyboard all day,” but let’s take a look at what purpose that would serve.  Telling a client that would put us both at ease.  I would feel helpful and wise, and the client would have something to blame their frustrating condition on.  Yes, it would keep us both right in our little sphere of comfort in which we maintain and repeat familiar patterns, but alas, the therapeutic process is not always comfortable.

A cause is defined as something that exists such that a particular outcome is certain.  Causes show up all over the place in things like auto mechanics – if your break pads wear down to the screecher, then there will be a screeching sound when your wheels are moving.  Fortunately, we are much more than machines and any such assessment would fall gravely short of the reality of a living system.

Maybe the client in question gets the same levator scapulae spasm any time they use a computer for several hours, but look at their neighbors, co-workers, family, anyone… not everyone experiences this spasm in response to that stimulus.  From this we must conclude that prolonged use of a “hunched” posture is only a contributing factor to the spasm.

The list of other contributing factors is usually vast, largely unknown by the therapist or even the client, and includes things like diet, movement habits, emotional habits, trauma, and more.

Now that we’ve determined that a cause is in reality a huge list of factors, I’ll have to disappoint you again.  If you’re a scientist, you’re already ahead of me.  The fact is we can see all these factors, and intuit which ones are likely cause the others, but ultimately all that is known is correlation.  Most statements of causality would be speculation and nothing more.

I find it more helpful to think of this jumble of circumstances as sort of a causal cycle, or web.  Web is is the more accurate term since we already know that causation is often assumed, but I like to use the cycle image because it’s easier to visualize.  This is pretty much the same thing as the gestalt concept.  I often advise clients to include several different therapies in their healing endeavor, explaining that each one will work with a piece of the causal cycle, resulting in synergistic benefits.

So now that we’ve determined that telling a client “this hurts because that” is, while easy, not really truthful, let’s talk about what else it might do.

If, as I and countless other therapists believe, the painful muscle cramp is only one facet of a great, being-wide phenomenon, then it follows that the best therapy would focus on the whole issue, not just one symptom.  By telling the client that the root cause is exactly what they already think it is, the therapist reinforces their subconscious story that the pain is part of them and will continue as long as they go on doing what they do, and rules out the possibility of any type of new experience (which is essential to therapy).  In my practice, I work with the quiet knowledge in hand that a symphony of events is packed into each muscle, each stroke, and every cell in our bodies, and I strive to craft my words and attitude carefully as to support the whole of a person in balance, and not box them into the pattern they wish to escape from.

So, if you’re on my table, and you ask me why your low back is sooo stiff, please don’t be too upset when I tell you “You’ll never know.”  Maybe it’s better to ask “What can I do to feel better?”