The Process of Muscle Release Therapy, MRTh® and
Fundamental Movement Pilates℠
by Dennis Gibbons, LMT
Dennis Gibbons, LMT
If you or someone you know has ever suffered from acute or chronic pain the ultimate goal is not just make the pain go away, rather KEEP the pain away. The two modalities employed at CVWC Were created, and are continually evolving procedures that rectify many long term issues the human body possesses that create both chronic and acute pain. As you will learn, the natural progression of these processes leads the individual from the therapy room to the Pilates studio. Understanding why they are considered processes is very important to fully attain all of the benefits that Muscle Release Therapy, MRTh® and Fundamental Movement Pilates℠ provide.
The definition of a process according to “The American Heritage Dictionary, 2nd College Edition” is: (1) a series of steps, actions, or operations used to bring about a desired result. (2) A series of natural changes by which something passes from one condition to another. In our busy world today processes sometimes are not nurtured because of either time or money. The true fact is that what normally happens over time, some people call it the aging process, is that circumstances that cause us pain had its own process. Individuals just don’t wake up one day and have neck, low back, hip, knee or foot pain; fibromyalgia, arthritis, TMJD, Plantar Fasciitis, or the many other ailments that are treated at Chagrin Valley Wellness Center.
During our initial interviews and evaluations we will ask the question, “What injuries or problems have you experienced in the past?” The response is often very negligible and confusing because what they are coming in for is pain in the low back. It has been my experience over the past 24 years that many times low back pain is just the step child to a previous incident. In fact I would say that approximately 30% of the low back pain I address is caused from the body’s inability to properly move while breathing, sitting, standing, bending and reaching. What oftentimes happen are the rib cage and the pelvis become one in the same anatomically, meaning that instead of moving independent of one another they actually move together. For instance, when breathing the individual’s chest will move in and out instead of up and down, this is normally caused by restrictions in the mid abdominal area. When the subject is brought up many will respond, “But I never had any injury to my abdomen!” My response to that is did you ever have bronchitis, pneumonia, cough, sneeze, or strain yourself when moving your bowels? The answer to one of these is, “well yes but not for awhile.” That can indicate the initial trauma. What this does though is start a process of immobility and thereby discourage the body’s inability to be motile in its movement. Over time the initial trauma to the soft tissue structures distorts itself more and more and the restriction becomes more ingrained, and this will eventually limit the ability of the low back to function as it is meant. A side note to this type of injury is it may cause shoulder pain and will contribute to headaches.
Another trauma process is one where a previous injury created a change through compensation to the body’s natural posture. This will predispose another remote site to a sudden injury because it has placed that area into a compromised position. Using the aforementioned abdominal injury an area of pain that often traces back to that area is the dreaded sciatic pain. When the torso is unable to rotate two issues will develop, the first is asking the pelvic girdle to do what the thoracic spine is meant to do and this compromising movement will ask specific muscles for more than they can handle. Over a period of time this will stress the muscles to a point of weakness and at that specific time they stop working. Another area that is often placed in a precarious position is the lumbar nerves which feed the muscle structures of the pelvic and lower extremity areas. The restriction in the Fascia will prevent these nerves from being able to slide with the movement and that interruption of movement elicits pain. Once again this process has taken over.
The process’ of Muscle Release Therapy, MRTh® and Fundamental Movement Pilates℠ addresses these issues. The therapy addresses all of the areas of the natural posture for each individual that is evaluated and treated at Chagrin Valley Wellness Center. Our goal is to create a pain free posture that is able to function. With that said I also want to explain in almost all circumstances the practitioner needs to first bring about a relatively healthy posture and that is what is normally being accomplished at the first appointment. It is customary to have the client return in a week to ten days for a follow up. It is at that appointment where a better determination of future visits is made, or developing a game plan for the individual. The second appointment is also when the client should come in with any and all questions that they may have, a diary of how they felt after the first appointment and all changes that took place between the first session to that present moment. This will aid the practitioner in the development of the process necessary.
Questions I am often asked is “How many visits will it take?”; “will I feel better immediately?” and “Will I be sore from this treatment?” The answers are “I don’t know.” “You will feel different, and will normally notice the ability to move easier.” “Yes.”
Sometimes we are able to bring resolve to an issue with just one or two sessions, but in other instances the body’s posture will require future appointments. Spacing them out is often the key ingredient to assuring that proper restructuring and re-patterning takes place but that needs to be an educated decision between the individual and practitioner. This allows the process that created the necessity of the therapy, in the first place to be fully addressed and rectified. There are some instances where after the first appointment people feel “good” enough that they cancel or postpone that follow up visit, this is normally not advisable. The reason being is Muscle Release Therapy, MRTh® has placed the body in a good posture but because of subconscious behavior patterns in movement, the brain will retrace those steps. This will re-create the problem and discourage the individual to thinking, “I don’t feel I got any relief.”
Once Muscle Release Therapy, MRTh® balances the posture, I will ultimately hear, “I feel so good! What can I do to maintain it?” This is when the recommendation of Fundamental Movement Pilates℠ is made. Two major happenings take place once the client commits to this process, the first being the individual is now taking control of their own destiny. The second is that the movement re-education that takes place during these class sessions will re-pattern the nerve pathways so that proper movement once again becomes a good habit. As the process of injury continued to grow the brain needed to restructure how we move to be as comfortable as possible. It is this unstructured movement that will often allow the discomfort we feel to return or maybe find a new home within our posture.
When I first began to develop The Gibbons Formula of Soft Tissue Postural Analysis© I also searched for a protocol that would enable individuals to maintain what was accomplished and continue to strengthen themselves to help prevent. I studied the many movement techniques and they were wonderful but didn’t really strengthen as well as re-educate. I was introduced to the Pilates method but was not comfortable with it completely until I was introduced to the DK Body Balancing method that was being taught at the University of Nevada – Las Vegas by a former dancer by the name of Dolly Kelepecz. I was introduced to Ms. Kelepecz by a former Cleveland Ballet dancer who was performing in Las Vegas, was injured and used this method of Pilates to recuperate. For seven years I would travel to Las Vegas to learn this technique until I started to incorporate it in our practice at Chagrin Valley Wellness Center. What was needed though was modification to accommodate the clientele that visited Chagrin Valley Wellness Center. That has lead to what is now called Fundamental Movement Pilates℠ and its melding into the philosophy of Muscle Release Therapy®. Often individuals will say they feel the same after a session of Pilates as they do when they leave the therapy room.
Once again the formula used in Fundamental Movement Pilates℠ is processes that will help individuals accomplish the following:
· A re-patterning of the movement that develop when there was injury
· A specific strengthening of the 30 postural muscles that help us maintain our posture’s neutral center
· A reshaping of the body itself
· The body’s ability to move correctly to help avoid those nagging injuries from returning
The use of Pilates based equipment helps the certified instructor ensure that the student is in proper form so that all movement patterns are performed efficiently. Unlike many other forms of Pilates based work, ours is more of a movement format than an aerobic exercise. This means that the equipment is used more to assist your movement and to help strengthen the proper postural muscles.
So if you want to rid yourself of the many forms of chronic and acute pain syndromes the decision to join in the process is necessary. Our staff also includes a licensed Acupuncturist and a certified Reiki practitioner. If you would like to talk with one of our therapist’s or instructors please feel free to give us a call at (216)364-0152 or email us at appointments@chagrinvalleywellness.com.
Let the process begin…..
Peace and Blessings to all,
Dennis
The definition of a process according to “The American Heritage Dictionary, 2nd College Edition” is: (1) a series of steps, actions, or operations used to bring about a desired result. (2) A series of natural changes by which something passes from one condition to another. In our busy world today processes sometimes are not nurtured because of either time or money. The true fact is that what normally happens over time, some people call it the aging process, is that circumstances that cause us pain had its own process. Individuals just don’t wake up one day and have neck, low back, hip, knee or foot pain; fibromyalgia, arthritis, TMJD, Plantar Fasciitis, or the many other ailments that are treated at Chagrin Valley Wellness Center.
During our initial interviews and evaluations we will ask the question, “What injuries or problems have you experienced in the past?” The response is often very negligible and confusing because what they are coming in for is pain in the low back. It has been my experience over the past 24 years that many times low back pain is just the step child to a previous incident. In fact I would say that approximately 30% of the low back pain I address is caused from the body’s inability to properly move while breathing, sitting, standing, bending and reaching. What oftentimes happen are the rib cage and the pelvis become one in the same anatomically, meaning that instead of moving independent of one another they actually move together. For instance, when breathing the individual’s chest will move in and out instead of up and down, this is normally caused by restrictions in the mid abdominal area. When the subject is brought up many will respond, “But I never had any injury to my abdomen!” My response to that is did you ever have bronchitis, pneumonia, cough, sneeze, or strain yourself when moving your bowels? The answer to one of these is, “well yes but not for awhile.” That can indicate the initial trauma. What this does though is start a process of immobility and thereby discourage the body’s inability to be motile in its movement. Over time the initial trauma to the soft tissue structures distorts itself more and more and the restriction becomes more ingrained, and this will eventually limit the ability of the low back to function as it is meant. A side note to this type of injury is it may cause shoulder pain and will contribute to headaches.
Another trauma process is one where a previous injury created a change through compensation to the body’s natural posture. This will predispose another remote site to a sudden injury because it has placed that area into a compromised position. Using the aforementioned abdominal injury an area of pain that often traces back to that area is the dreaded sciatic pain. When the torso is unable to rotate two issues will develop, the first is asking the pelvic girdle to do what the thoracic spine is meant to do and this compromising movement will ask specific muscles for more than they can handle. Over a period of time this will stress the muscles to a point of weakness and at that specific time they stop working. Another area that is often placed in a precarious position is the lumbar nerves which feed the muscle structures of the pelvic and lower extremity areas. The restriction in the Fascia will prevent these nerves from being able to slide with the movement and that interruption of movement elicits pain. Once again this process has taken over.
The process’ of Muscle Release Therapy, MRTh® and Fundamental Movement Pilates℠ addresses these issues. The therapy addresses all of the areas of the natural posture for each individual that is evaluated and treated at Chagrin Valley Wellness Center. Our goal is to create a pain free posture that is able to function. With that said I also want to explain in almost all circumstances the practitioner needs to first bring about a relatively healthy posture and that is what is normally being accomplished at the first appointment. It is customary to have the client return in a week to ten days for a follow up. It is at that appointment where a better determination of future visits is made, or developing a game plan for the individual. The second appointment is also when the client should come in with any and all questions that they may have, a diary of how they felt after the first appointment and all changes that took place between the first session to that present moment. This will aid the practitioner in the development of the process necessary.
Questions I am often asked is “How many visits will it take?”; “will I feel better immediately?” and “Will I be sore from this treatment?” The answers are “I don’t know.” “You will feel different, and will normally notice the ability to move easier.” “Yes.”
Sometimes we are able to bring resolve to an issue with just one or two sessions, but in other instances the body’s posture will require future appointments. Spacing them out is often the key ingredient to assuring that proper restructuring and re-patterning takes place but that needs to be an educated decision between the individual and practitioner. This allows the process that created the necessity of the therapy, in the first place to be fully addressed and rectified. There are some instances where after the first appointment people feel “good” enough that they cancel or postpone that follow up visit, this is normally not advisable. The reason being is Muscle Release Therapy, MRTh® has placed the body in a good posture but because of subconscious behavior patterns in movement, the brain will retrace those steps. This will re-create the problem and discourage the individual to thinking, “I don’t feel I got any relief.”
Once Muscle Release Therapy, MRTh® balances the posture, I will ultimately hear, “I feel so good! What can I do to maintain it?” This is when the recommendation of Fundamental Movement Pilates℠ is made. Two major happenings take place once the client commits to this process, the first being the individual is now taking control of their own destiny. The second is that the movement re-education that takes place during these class sessions will re-pattern the nerve pathways so that proper movement once again becomes a good habit. As the process of injury continued to grow the brain needed to restructure how we move to be as comfortable as possible. It is this unstructured movement that will often allow the discomfort we feel to return or maybe find a new home within our posture.
When I first began to develop The Gibbons Formula of Soft Tissue Postural Analysis© I also searched for a protocol that would enable individuals to maintain what was accomplished and continue to strengthen themselves to help prevent. I studied the many movement techniques and they were wonderful but didn’t really strengthen as well as re-educate. I was introduced to the Pilates method but was not comfortable with it completely until I was introduced to the DK Body Balancing method that was being taught at the University of Nevada – Las Vegas by a former dancer by the name of Dolly Kelepecz. I was introduced to Ms. Kelepecz by a former Cleveland Ballet dancer who was performing in Las Vegas, was injured and used this method of Pilates to recuperate. For seven years I would travel to Las Vegas to learn this technique until I started to incorporate it in our practice at Chagrin Valley Wellness Center. What was needed though was modification to accommodate the clientele that visited Chagrin Valley Wellness Center. That has lead to what is now called Fundamental Movement Pilates℠ and its melding into the philosophy of Muscle Release Therapy®. Often individuals will say they feel the same after a session of Pilates as they do when they leave the therapy room.
Once again the formula used in Fundamental Movement Pilates℠ is processes that will help individuals accomplish the following:
· A re-patterning of the movement that develop when there was injury
· A specific strengthening of the 30 postural muscles that help us maintain our posture’s neutral center
· A reshaping of the body itself
· The body’s ability to move correctly to help avoid those nagging injuries from returning
The use of Pilates based equipment helps the certified instructor ensure that the student is in proper form so that all movement patterns are performed efficiently. Unlike many other forms of Pilates based work, ours is more of a movement format than an aerobic exercise. This means that the equipment is used more to assist your movement and to help strengthen the proper postural muscles.
So if you want to rid yourself of the many forms of chronic and acute pain syndromes the decision to join in the process is necessary. Our staff also includes a licensed Acupuncturist and a certified Reiki practitioner. If you would like to talk with one of our therapist’s or instructors please feel free to give us a call at (216)364-0152 or email us at appointments@chagrinvalleywellness.com.
Let the process begin…..
Peace and Blessings to all,
Dennis
