What is Myotherapy and The Benefits to You?
Have you started believing the word therapy is getting over used? Everyday, in every magazine imaginable, and in every newspaper you read about some kind of new therapy, but how many of these therapies have actually been used by a President of the USA, and is still around 50 years later? Why did the President’s physician in both the Kennedy and Johnson era’s use this powerful form of alternative therapy, and what is myotherapy anyway?
Myotherapy is actually a two-fold form of therapy which combines a very specialized form of massage, along with proper muscular treatment for the long-haul. The roots of this method start with Dr. Janet Travell, who was the White House Physician, and then picked up and expanded by Bonnie Pruden, a fitness expert. What they both discovered is by stimulating trigger points in certain areas of the body, you could relieve painful conditions in other parts of the body.
Their research helped them to map out the connections between these neural pathways, and how they affected corresponding body parts. Often headaches, backaches, and other painful conditions are not truly present in the location of the pain, but are caused by muscular, skeletal, or neural problem in a area adjacent, or sometimes far removed from the site with the pain. By treating the proper location, and relieving the pressure the pain subsides. This relief is accomplished with the first phase of the myotherapy plan through applying pressure and proper massage techniques. This is the portion of the treatment which gives the most immediate, but short time relief.
The second part of myotherapy is concerned with determining the underlying cause of the stress in the site, and then providing a series of exercises and stretches to correct the problem for a long term solution. This requires following the prescribed forms of exercise and therapy to increase muscle strength, and relieve tension in the area affected. As the is area becomes able to support itself properly, the associated pain in the other parts of your body subside, and can completely disappear. You may need to keep up the exercise and therapy to maintain the area in a healthy condition for the best long term results.
A portion of myotherapy, the pressure and massage techniques, is closely associated the to methods found in Shiatsu massage, or acupuncture. These two techniques use the same ideas of working on the root location of the problems, and not on the specific location of the pain. Where myotherapy takes the next important step is working on a long term solution to the physical ailment, by increasing your strength, flexibility, and healing the root problem.
Hopefully this helps you have a better understanding of what is myotherapy and its benefits. It can be the right solution for reducing your pain, and healing the problem. Many times myotherapy uncovers the root cause of pain which more traditional forms of diagnosis have left unresolved. If you have been experiencing problems with pain which are hard to get rid of myotherapy is one option for fast relief, and long term results.
