How the Rotator Cuff Works

October 27th, 2011

The Rotator Cuff is a fascinating and complex structure.  With its muscles and tendons, it is designed to stabilize our shoulder.  It is a crucial part of the human anatomy because it helps to suspend the entire upper limb from the rest of the body, and allows all of our shoulder movements.  As a massage therapist, it is important to know how the Rotator Cuff is designed and how exactly it functions.  The majority of my clients suffer from some type of shoulder pain or discomfort, and damage to the Rotator Cuff is one of the most common causes.

To understand how the cuff works, we must understand its anatomy.   The Rotator Cuff is comprised of your Shoulder Joint, 4 muscles and a ligament.  The Shoulder Joint, otherwise known as the Glenohumeral Joint is a Synovial Ball and Socket Joint.  We have many types of joints in our bodies and they all serve different purposes for different functions.  The Rotator Cuff was designed for a wide variety of movements and this type of joint makes these movements possible. Synovial Joints allow for this extra mobility because the cavities between bones in a synovial joint are filled with synovial fluid. This fluid helps to lubricate and protect these bones in motion.  Below is a posterior view of the Glenohumeral Joint. Read the rest of this entry »

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Suffering from Sciatica? Massage Could be Your Best Friend

September 30th, 2011

Every time a potential client calls me and explains that they are being affected by Sciatica, I am very pleased.  Of course, I am not happy to hear that they are dealing with this pesky ailment, but that they decided to call an LMT to help with their problem.  Many people turn immediately to their family doctor, who will most likely prescribe drugs or push for surgery to cure their pain.  I love to treat Sciatica with bodywork because it has such a high success rate.  I have treated countless cases of Sciatica in my practice and over 90% of these clients retain a full recovery or decrease their pain significantly. Read the rest of this entry »

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Top Professions That Cause Dysfunction in the Body

August 18th, 2011

Ever wonder what jobs today cause the most strain on your body?  As an LMT, I have seen how certain jobs adversely affect people’s muscles and skeletal structure.  Any profession that causes people to do repetitive motions each day, more often than not lead to problems down the road.  It may take a few months, a few years or even a few decades, but chances are your body will suffer the consequences of using the same muscles repetitively on a daily basis.

Today, our professions often force us to sit or stand in the same positions for 8 hours plus.  And adding constant, continual movements or heavy weight on top of that can be detrimental to our physical frame.

Our first ancestors lived much differently than we do today.  All modern humans were hunter-gatherers until around 10,000 years ago.  Look how much we have evolved!   Following the invention of agriculture, hunter-gatherers have been displaced by farming groups in most parts of the world.  Today, with the many advancements of technology, humans have much different jobs than that of our predecessors.

Think about the human anatomy.  Our bodies move many ways, but it’s important to see that they work together as one functional unit.  If you overwork one part of your body, it causes a chain-reaction to occur in our structure.  Similar to a domino-effect, when one section of our functional unit works too hard, the parts around that section begin to suffer, and so forth.  Your body will try to help the over-fatigued area, but often times this just throws off other components of our structure.  Now, you begin to deal with more injury in more segments of your body.  This syndrome is often called over-compensation.  One part of your body is over-compensating for another, and the damage can start to spread.

Now, I would like to look closer at 6 professions that I have found to cause a lot of dysfunction in our structures.  Here they are starting with the most harmful:

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The Infinite Benefits of Massage

June 24th, 2011

There are many stigmas surrounding massage therapy.  Of course, massage therapy is a much more respected profession than it used to be but there are still many misconceptions that I come across all the time.  It is amazing the number of people I talk to about massage,  who seem to think that massage is solely for pleasure and relaxation.  Of course, if someone has never been introduced to the art of massage, this is certainly what they assume about it.  One of the many aspects that I love about my career is that I get to educate people on just what massage is and its different modalities.

I thought it would be nice to write a blog to focus on all of the many wonderful ways that massage therapy can be an advantage to you, your mind and body, and your health.  And because I have worked on clients with a very wide range of ailments – be that physical or mental, I am truly convinced that massage therapy can positively influence many aspects of our beings.

There are so many benefits to massage that it is almost difficult to know where to start.  But lets start with some very basic benefits that can be an advantage to anyone and then explain how massage can aid specific populations.

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TMJ Dysfunction: Treat Your Aching, Clicking, Hard-To-Open Jaw with Massage

May 26th, 2011

Have you ever felt tightness in your jaw and just can’t fathom the cause?  Does your jaw click when you are chewing or while trying to open/close your mouth?  Are you not able to open your jaw very wide because its too painful?  Do you suffer from headaches along with your jaw discomfort?  If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may be suffering from TMJD – TemporoMandibular Joint Dysfunction.  More recently the term for this jaw dysfunction has been coined TMD or TemporoMandibular Disorders.

It is not rare that people suffer or have sometime in their life suffered from jaw pain.  I have found that many of my Salt Lake City, Utah clients will come to me with complaints of back or neck pain; but when asked about any subsequent jaw pain, they often have that too.  The Temporomandibular Joint is a unique joint because it not only can open and close vertically, but can move laterally as well.   And because of this, I have seen TMD manifest a large variety of symptoms.  As mentioned above, there can be clicking, the inability to open the jaw very wide and overall tightness.  But here are some more symptoms that might not seem as obvious.

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