Muscle strain is a common source of back pain. Often stemming from unbalanced posture or overexertion, your symptoms could linger beyond the time it takes for muscle strain to heal. The problem isn’t in the muscles themselves but in surrounding tissue called fascia.
At Active Care Chiropractic & Rehabilitation, we often recommend treatments using the Graston Technique® for our patients who suffer from prolonged symptoms from soft tissue injuries. It’s often effective at releasing myofascial scar tissue, an underlying cause of pain and mobility restrictions.
Here’s what you need to know about myofascial scarring and how the Graston Technique provides a musculoskeletal reset to ease your symptoms.
Each muscle group in your body has a thin sheath of collagen and elastin, called fascia. When referring to this connective tissue when it surrounds muscle, we add the medical prefix “myo,” which means “muscle.”
Myofascial tissue normally provides a smooth, slippery surface that reduces friction between groups of muscles. Problems occur when you suffer muscle strains that create scar tissue in the myofascial layer.
Sometimes called adhesions or myofascial trigger points, you may think of these as “muscle knots” since you can sometimes feel the scar tissue in the painful or tender area. The Graston Technique targets both pain and function by introducing controlled inflammatory responses to speed natural healing.
The Graston Technique builds around a set of six handheld stainless steel tools that allow your practitioner to identify and break up myofascial adhesions. These tools aren’t sharp, and they combine a mix of concave and convex surfaces.
Pressed and pulled against your problem areas, we can identify knots and treat them at the same time with manual manipulation. You can think of it as a tool-assisted local massage.
Typically, we work against the grain of the local scar tissue to manipulate it with the goal of introducing deliberate micro injuries in the area. This causes temporary inflammation and an increase in blood flow.
These effects hasten natural healing, releasing and repairing scar tissue, which permits free movement between muscle groups while relieving pain as inflammation and motion restrictions subside.
Your body is a system, and depending on the location and condition of your myofascial adhesions, we may address your symptoms by using the Graston Technique on areas that seem unrelated to your knots.
We’re following the kinetic chain, the series of joints through your body that link together for your overall musculoskeletal continuity. As well as back pain, we use the Graston Technique to treat problems such as carpal tunnel syndrome, plantar fasciitis, and tendinitis, as well as strains and sprains in other locations.
Visit us at Active Care Chiropractic & Rehabilitation. We have six locations in the Philadelphia area, so we’re conveniently located for area residents. Call or click to request an appointment with the nearest office today.
