Dynamic Balance

April 2008

Get It Started - Editorial

June is here! Gas is $4.00 a gallon and it is the start of Hurricane Season. Whoo hoo!!

Now that we got that encouraging note out of the way lets get on to other things. Last month and the beginning of this month have been very busy for me with a variety of projects. In may i started as a Sales Rep for Allsolar Services. Just try to guess what products they handle.

As an attempt by our chamber networking group we put together the first of several "Meet & Greet"'s. This is our attempt to put off the naysayer who would be happy to fill you with doom and gloom of the economy failing to server their political needs

BTW if you can't wait for the monthly newsletters for your fix of all things massage therapy you can go to http://www.scinthenews.com/index.php?news=997 f - you can search and get all the articles by putting "Gary" in the search box

Did You know?

There are approximately 36K "Licensed" Massage Therapists in the state of Florida. More than almost any 2 other states. We have the 2nd highest requirements in the country and there are about 6 schools in the central Florida area, that pump out on the average of 40 students every 6 months. About 500 LMT's a year. Most never make it past the 2nd year of practice.

Body Balancing Massage Therapy - Business

 Events like St. Cloud Life are a great venue to promote your business and learn about the other businesses around you. During St. Cloud life I often heard ...

"the business next to me told me that there was a massage therapist in the other building that can help, I came over to check it out."

This is a great benefit for the vendors of any event. Often vendors get so wound up for an event they end up in knots. You really have to be on your game at events like this. Normally an 8 or 10 hour day is exhausting, but an 8 or 10 at an expo or show is like a normal 15 hour day.

It is also a great draw for your booth. People will stop and wait a half hour for a 10 minute chair massage giving you ample time to introduce them to your product or service.

 "Then when I saw it was you I thought "oh good. its Gary I know he can help"

" I know a talented pair of hands when I feel them, and yours are gold!"

" All I can say is,... ahhhhhhhhhhh"

St. Cloud life is a show I always enjoy doing. It gives me the opportunity to really explain and show people how massage and bodywork can help and what the difference is between my work and others. Until you let me work on you I am no different from the oil spreader down the street. After a short session you realize very quickly the difference.

So if you have an event coming up position yourself close to the MT doing chair massage, or hire them to work in your booth. But get a massage. The difference in you will be noticeable to your customers,... and your bottom line.

Recently I showed up for an appointment to a regular client for their massage and he conveyed to me that they had been diagnosed with pleurisy. I pointed out right away I had never treated it before but knew of no contraindications for massage therapy. My most immediate conundrum was how to treat it. I think I had about 3 minutes to put together a treatment plan and put it in action.

First thing I did was flip through the mental pages of what the diagnosis of pleurisy was: "inflammation of the lining of the lungs" key word here is inflammation. Inflammation is a protection and healing response for harmful stimuli, pathogens, damaged cells and infection. Since aggressive massage can create inflammation, that wasn't the approach necessary. I reasoned that the best approach for the client was to open the lymphatic pathways to do its job and if nothing else since LDT is so soothing, it would help the patient to relax.

So the LDT with some light stretching opened up the pathways for the in and out of fluids and the LDT promoted the flow of the Lymphatic system. He remarked right away that the symptoms had eased and he could actually take a deeper breath without pain and on the road to healing.

Pronounced (ser-RA-tus pos-TEER-I-or in-feer-i-or) the serratus posterior Inferior is one of many secondary muscles of respiration. While it is argued  whether it is a muscle of inspiration or expiration, most believe it to be both.

The muscle itself connects to the 4 most inferior or "floating" ribs to the spinous process (that's the bumps in the middle of your back you can feel) and the supraspinous ligament (line of ligament connecting from the base of the neck to the butt crack)

The muscle itself actually looks like 4 separate muscles that lie side by side. Like the other serratus muscle sin the body it interdigitates with the ribs to form that "serrated" look. (Yes, like the knife)

This muscle, assists in respiration, stabilizes the floating ribs and pulls them down towards the lumbar vertebrae. The stretch reflex in the muscle helps circulation of the lymph in the area by initiating contraction after a given stretch. Since this area of lymphatic vessels is at the far end of the drain line every little pump helps.

It is innervated by the thoracic nerves T9 - T12 which also innervates the latissimus dorsi that covers it. It is interesting to note that while the serratus posterior inferior pulls on the ribs downward towards the lumbar  or low back area the latissimus dorsi also pulls the arm down, hence the referral to it as the "swimmers muscle"

Lets get it out right off the bat. This one can be mistaken for renal disease or kidney infection. Treatment is not known to exacerbate kidney infection though one should still be careful and get a physicians examination to rule it out. Also, this area is prone to pain from pleurisy so be careful.

Now, on to the NMT stuff. For obvious reasons if you are getting pain in this location  this can be worrisome at best and critical at worst. Not only can the diagnosis of renal problems contribute to the Trigger Point (TrP) by way of sensitivity and guarding reflex, but it can exacerbate any symptoms of shallow breathing .

While there is only one X to mark the spot on the diagram (to the Left), each fingerlike projection can harbor a TrP, but they still refer to the same area. So finding the TrP will count mostly on palpation (touching) skills. Treatment of the myofascia (skin stretching) should be first to relieve any anatomical pulling into the area of the shoulder blade. Rubbing ice along the length of the length of the muscle can help to defuse the TrP so you can use ischemic compression (put your thumb on it and wait for the "tootsie roll" to melt) to deactivate and lessen the pain.

Pictured here is "Tom Myers" Superficial Backline. While the serratus posterior inferior is not part of this line it does run across the muscle fibers to the backbone. It should also be noted that the "spiral line" also runs up the back in the same musculature. However the Spiral line is much more immediately connected to other respiratory muscles.