This is a new monthly feature on the blog. Each month I'll collect your questions and respond to a few of them in my Ask The Massage Therapist! column.
SUBMIT YOUR QUESTIONS HERE! or leave your questions in the comments section.
For this first column I am responding to five of the most frequently asked questions that I receive about massage and bodies.
1. Can You Really Feel That?
Variations on this question: What do you feel? How can you tell there's tension in my muscles? Does it feel like a _____(rope, rock, marble, etc)? I love this question!
Can I feel that gigantic lump of tension you're holding in your neck muscles? Yep. That rope of knotted muscle tissue across the front of your thigh? Yes, I can. Oh, you mean the rock-hard jaw muscles from clenching your teeth to avoid yelling at your boss? Oh, yes, I can feel that tension!In massage school we spent many hours practicing the skill of palpation. Through palpation we learned to discern the different layers of the body: skin, fat (adipose) tissue, connective tissue (fascia), muscle tissue, and bone. We learned how to figure out if something is a tendon (slippery) or something is a knotted rope of muscle tissue (usually by location). As a professional massage therapist for 16 years, I've taken some continuing education with cadaver classes, where I get to literally touch the different layers of the body one by one to understand what I'm feeling.
Additionally, we learn anatomy and physiology. The location of what I feel clues me into what structure I am feeling. A tendon has a specific place, so do ligaments and bones and muscles...by paying attention to where I'm touching you I can tell if it's muscle tension or a bone.
That's why sometimes I laugh when I'm touching a tight muscle and a client asks "is that a bone?" No, but holding your shoulders up by your ears for a couple of months will make them feel hard like bone!
2. What causes muscle tension?
Lots of things. A few include:
- repetitive use over a long period of time (months, years, lifetimes)- using the muscles in the same way, same range of motion, with the same load-bearing stress.
- dehydration and poor nutrition
- a sedentary lifestyle- lack of movement aside from "survival movement" (sitting, standing, lying down)
- illness and disease (colds, flus, chronic pain conditions, and serious diseases like cancer)
- sometimes even treatment of disease will cause tension that wasn't there before the treatment
- injury, even if you don't think it was a very big one
- emotional tension and psychological distress
- physical, emotional, psychological, and social trauma
3. What's Happening in a Tense Muscle?
Imagine a bunch of noodles that you stick into a pot of boiling water without separating. The starch in the noodles means they'll all stick together in one big lump, and the inner noodles will remain stiff and undercooked. That's somewhat of a metaphor for what's happening once muscles get tense. (I love food metaphors!)
An entire muscle, like your biceps, is made up of thousands (or tens of thousands) of muscle fibers all grouped together by connective tissue (like the way your sleeve goes around your arm). Inside those muscle fibers are smaller segments that actually contract to produce movement.
Muscles move your body by getting shorter- contracting. When a muscle develops tension, it shortens. Depending on the circumstances, it might not be able to relax that tension (meaning it would lengthen)- that's where the bullet-list of what causes muscle tension comes in.
If some fibers within a muscle stay short and contracted, circulation is limited (meaning your muscle can't get as much oxygen and waste products accumulate because your lymphatic vessels are also constricted by the muscle tension). Your brain recieves messages of this tension and a pain response might be created.
To link this to Question #1: the group of contracted fibers feels like a "knot," "rope," "marble," hard spot, or fibrous band of muscle tissue. That's what I look for and work to release by using strokes that lengthen, broaden and compress the muscle, bringing in fresh circulation and helping your lymphatic system clean out the accumulated waste.
4. Is it okay if I make sounds when I'm getting a massage?
YES! In fact, letting some sounds like groans, moans, and deep sighs out does two things:
1) encourages you to be a more active participant in the massage, literally engaging your nervous system in the process rather than being passive; and
2) helps me understand what's happening for you, especially if it's difficult for you to find words such as "that's too deep," or "that feels so good!" A sound can signal what kind of experience you're having, triggering me to check in with you or to continue the work that sounds like it feels so good.
5. Why am I thirsty / Why do I need to pee after I get a massage?
Massage, especially when it's full-body relaxation massage, stimulates the functioning of your circulatory system. Your circulatory system includes blood, lymph, and intra- and extra-cellular fluids. Massage literally moves your fluids around, and what's excess or toxic is filtered through your kidneys and sent to your bladder for excretion.
That's also why you're thirsty ;-)
