Is pain ruining your favourite activity? Perhaps your knees hurt, your back “goes out”, you’re prone to strains, or you’re always lagging behind because you just can’t get any power into your step? Or worse still, you keep injuring yourself? You love your sport, but you’re starting to worry your pain may force you to give it up.
Wouldn’t you rather be out there having fun?
Wouldn’t it be great if you felt you could rely on your body to support you? Running, jumping, twisting, turning, kicking, reaching or just plain moving freely? You may not want to be a world champion, but at least being able to consistently perform well would be a major plus!
All of these things are possible, if you get the right help!
You may have had an accident or injury at some point. You may never have fully recovered or during your recovery, you may have favoured one side over the other creating a compensation or imbalance which you are still, unconsciously, using today. Or maybe you only get to exercise a couple of times a week because you spend most of your time at work sitting at a desk?
A Postural Approach
| The human body is made up of 4 sets of weight bearing joints – the ankles, the knees, the hips and the shoulders. Each set of joints should be level with each other horizontally (i.e. both sets of hips at the same height), and in the same line vertically (i.e. shoulders over hips over kness over ankles). This framework of right angles ensures that the weight of the body is distributed evenly over all the joints.
When muscles are favoured or used in repetitive patterns for long periods of time (like when sitting), they start to get stuck in those patterns, thus shortening the muscle and pulling the underlying skeleton out of alignment. This can result in, say, one hip becoming higher than the other, meaning the weight is no longer evenly spread and some muscles having to do more work than others. And over-worked muscles become tight, imbalanced muscles.
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Releasing this tightness and regaining a better alignment in the body will not only relieve your pain, but enhance your performance too!
If you’ve ever looked at the way scaffolding is erected you will see that it is always in a right angle formation. This is because this is the most stable configuration. Would you feel safe climbing a set of scaffolding that was put together at all sorts of different angles? Probably not, because it looks unstable. Lining the body up properly means restrictions are reduced and that you can have maximum force behind any movement. Hence the improved performance.
So how do you reduce your pain and improve your performance?
Get straightened out, of course!
Muscles that have been held tight for long periods need a lot of persuading to release! If you’ve got tight shoulders and try to release them just by thinking about it, you’ll probably find it makes very little difference. Even pummelling away at them can have little affect! So getting straightened out is a process of release and re-education. Releasing the tightness and teaching the muscle new, and often forgotten, movement patterns. And because of the body’s interconnected structure, this process must address the whole body. If one shoulder is tight, for example, it is usually because it is trying to balance out another tight muscle somewhere else. So if only the shoulder is released and not the other muscle(s) too, then the shoulder will soon tighten up again to maintain balance. However, if all the muscles are addressed, then release will be longer lasting.
That’s why postural alignment is at the core of Intouch’s approach
Because the structural alignment of the body is so important, Intouch Advanced Therapies’ treatments concentrate on re-aligning the body. As such, Intouch offer a 2-step approach to straightening people out. The first step is providing pain relief, the second is correcting postural misalignments so that the problem doesn’t recur. Therefore, the following treatments are used to address each stage:
Stage 1 – Pain Relief
Stage 2 – Pain Resolution
What’s Involved?
If you’re in pain, the place to start is an Advanced Massage. During your first appointment the following will occur:
- A full case history and postural assessment will be undertaken. As pain can be caused by many factors, this assesses all aspects of your life and helps to identify which factors may be contributing to your condition.
- An advanced massage treatment is then given. This will concentrate on any specific areas of pain as well as balancing any other areas involved in the holding pattern. Healing occurs when the client and the therapist meet to explore the body's secrets together. The therapist’s role is not to heal or cure clients, but to find areas of tension and help clients understand what's going on in their bodies and the relationship this may have to other areas of their life. The client’s role is to pay attention to what is discovered and work with the therapist to release the tension.
- A treatment plan is then agreed. Following the treatment, findings will be discussed and an appropriate treatment plan agreed. Sometimes pain can be resolved in one or two sessions, however, with long-standing complaints, the pain has usually persisted so long because there is an underlying postural problem. Therefore, it usually takes time and commitment to resolve such problems, that’s why a Treatment Plan is agreed. This may involved further advanced massage sessions, a postural alignment programme, or a combination of both. An indication of the likely number of sessions required will be given.
How do I book?
Intouch Advanced Therapies is run by Jill Maden, a highly qualified and experienced massage therapist and postural alignment specialist.
For 2 years I kept putting my back out every few months. I tried various treatments to “fix it” and although they would get me back on my feet again, they did not stop the problem from happening. Eventually I tried the Egoscue Method which immediately stabilised my back, however, I was left with some residual pain. In an effort to resolve this pain, I have experienced many therapies and studied many aspects of human health. My treatments are now based around what I have learned from my own personal and professional experience.
It’s important to me that I work with people who recognise that healthcare is a process and is seldom a “quick fix”. Therefore, I find that I get my best results when clients meet the following criteria:
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you are suffering from recurrent or long-term musculoskeletal pain
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you would like to get to the root of your problem
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you enjoy learning how your body, mind and emotions all work
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you want to participate in your treatment and recovery
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you are ready to take responsibility for your health
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you are willing to commit to a course of weekly (or as advised) treatments
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you are committed to keeping your appointments and following through with any “homework” set
If you meet these criteria and would like to book an appointment with me, please tell me a bit about yourself by calling me on 0141 954 0700. As I am limited to the number of clients I can work with, I urge you to take action today. We can then arrange a suitable appointment.
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