A New Approach to the Development and Improvement of Physical Health

  The modern systems of bodywork are interested in relaxation and physical therapy.   Terms such as neuromuscular therapy, connective tissue massage, myofascial therapy, trigger point massage, and soft tissue manipulation further classify these modern systems. Nevertheless, the majority are based on one or more of the following principles or techniques:

The Alexander Technique

    One of the first people who noticed how wrong posture in every day activities (sitting,standing, moving) is connected with serious physical and emotional problems was Frederick Matthias Alexander. He pioneered a simple, effective approach to rebalancing the body through awareness, movement, and touch. Being an actor, Alexander began to experience a piriodic loss of his voice while on stage. When he examined himself in a mirror, he discovered that he unconsciously and constantly moved his head back and down, tensed his neck and throat, and sucked in his breath whenever he thought of using his voice. Thanks for his observations Alexander evolved a method that used his breath to change this common muscular response, and he eventually regained his voice. It was the beginning of the development of the Alexander technique.

  Alexander knew that the correct interrelation of one's head, neck and back is essential for proper movement and functioning. He observed people's usual "misapplication" of their bodies for such mundane activities as sitting or standing, and Alexander helped his students become aware of these faulty habits and postures. He taught how to get rid of familiar postural "sets" that corresponded to these recurring habits so that the body could be guided to allow improved motion, balance, and posture.  Poor or restrained use of the body can provoke  many diseases, including debilitating curvatures of the spine, rheumatism, arthritis, and a variety of gastrointestinal and breathing disorders. 

  Experiments conducted by Frank Pierce Jones at Tufts University in the early 1970s, concluded that Alexander's methods could effectively interrupt or inhibit common and learned responses that interfere with proper body functioning. By doing so, the techniques allow for a renewal of natural balance and responsiveness during movement. In a typical session, a student may lie on a table, sit on a stool, or keep standigd. A teacher may  give the studants such  instructions as, "Let your head move forward and up to allow your torso to extend." While saying this, the teacher gently prevents the old habit and inspires a new perfected response of the head/neck/back relationship. During this time the student builds up a new body image, and by doing so retrains and remakes the way of  moving.

 About twenty-five hundred people all over the world have been trained in the Alexander technique. The Inner London Education Authority in Europe has  recognized that there are many Alexander teachers at various colleges, especially in the departments of speech, drama, music and dance. Athletes use the Alexander technique for melioration of their performance skills, and for the relief of chronic pain.

Alexander's work has influenced scientists, educators and teachers. Winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine (in 1973)  Nikolas Tinbergen, highly rewarded Alexander's contributions. This gentle technique has much to suggest with chronic pain and back disorders on the increase.

The Feldenkrais Method

Moshe Feldenkrais was a physicist who was engaged in research of  nuclear radiation and antisubmarine technology in France and England. Because of the personal trauma in the form of a sports-related bruise he started to investigate the functioning of the body. After submitting to the recommanded surgery, he tried to search for an alternative solution through the study of the nervous system and human behavior. Using his experience of martial arts, physiology, anatomy, psychology, and neurology, Feldenkrais  prevented his worsening and taught himself how to walk without pain.

The notion of "self-image" is basic to the theory, technique and method of Feldenkrais . He supposed that  if we want to change our mode of action we must change the image of ourselves that we carry within us.

Feldenkrais viewed the human organism as a complex system of intellect and function in which all movement mirrors the state of the nervous system and is also the basis of self-awareness. Our movements, be they good or bad, became habitual for us, and this can result in many physical and emotional problems. Feldenkrais reasoned that if the negative habitual patterns of movement are interrupted, the body will learn to function with greater ease and grace. This meliorates one's self-image and at the same time enlarges awareness and health.

Feldenkrais became aware the importance of breath and took it up as an inalienable form of movement. Deficient movement and deficient functioning decreases the breathing and incorrect breathing interferes with the proper functioning of the body. He found that even the movement of the eyes could seriously interfere with how other parts of the body function.

   Two approaches for working with students and clients were developed by Feldenkrais ; one carries out group lessons (called Awareness through Movement ), and the other concentrates on individualized hands-on touch and movement (called Functional Integration ). Partakers of Awareness through Movement are guided through a gentle succession planned to dislocate old patterns of movement with new ones. . Feldenkrais said that such lessons are designed to improve mobility.

With Functional Integration, learning occurs through touch. The practitioner directs the client's body through movements individualized to the client's particular needs.In the Feldenkrais method the practitioner tries to communicate to the person a sense of perfected self-image and movement. 

 On Feldenkrais's opinion: forcefully imposed "posture" is tough and inflexible, he avoided the idea of setting rules of proper form and function. There are a lot of elements of investigation, experimentation, and innovation in his method of teaching  that allows each person to find his own style of movement.

People who have difficulties in movement because of stress, accidents, back problems, other physically debilitating illnesses can use Feldenkrais's method to improve their physical health and start to move easily. But the main rule of Feldenkrais practitioners is a work with a person, but not with a disease. 

Awareness Through Movement

A certified Feldenkrais practitioner Ralph Strauch (Los Angeles), suggests the following  lesson designed to improve how the neck and head turn.

  You should sit upright, feet on the floor, your eyes closed. Turn your head slowly to the right until it stops. Notice if the movement is smooth and fluid, or somewhat rigid and jerky. Open your eyes and notice how far you turned, then bring your head back to the center.

Repeat this practice twenty times. Do not turn too far if its hard for you to do; move slowly and easily, and try to notice what you feel. Pay attention to the parts of your body that take part in the turning; be aware of how far down your spine you feel the movement.Your eyes and shoulders should move together with your head.

 Now sit quietly and notice how you feel. After some moments repeat the movement to the left. Notice if the quality of movement changed? 

Turn your head to both the left and the right, and compare your feeling during the movement and relief. Most people will notice an improvement in the quality of movement to the right.

This change is produced by the process of watching the movement, not by the movement itself. It is a growth in awareness that improves the movement .

You can test this: Close your eyes and imagine doing the same movement to the left. Imagine the movement becoming smoother and easier over ten to fifteen times. Feel the imaginary movement in the spine, the shoulders, and the eyes, just as if you realy move. Now actually turn the head to the left and the right, and notice how the movement has improved.

Rolfing

  When Ida P. Rolf (biochemist) was a young woman she was successfully treated by an osteopath for a respiratory condition and thus gained her first exposure to therapeutic manipulation. Ida was kicked by a horse and needed manipulations of repositioning a rib that had been displaced. Dr. Rolf was afraid that an operation would disturb her work because the body's structure extremely influence all physiological and psychological processes.

Dr. Rolf took a greate interest in Hatha yoga, which led her to the principle that human body needs to be balanced - only then  it will rise to a better human being. She founded the Rolf Institute for Structural Integration in 1970. The Structural Integration  or  " Rolfing " is based on the idea that human function is improved when the segments of the body (head, torso, pelvis, legs, feet) are entirely aligned. Most people are not aware when their bodies are out of balance. Many people while standing put most of their weight on their heels, thus throwing the balance backward. That's why the upper body must lean forward, throwing the pelvis out of alignment. And the head, in order to see, has to be tilted back. To hold such position the muscles of the neck, back, and legs must remain overly contracted and stressed. After maintaining this posture for a long time the fascial tissues (fibrous layers covering muscles) of the body have to compensate to hold everything in this out-of-balance position. Such poor movement  reduces mental clarity and drives to emotional stress.

. The fascia plays an important role in maintaining posture and movement. It is a thin, elastic, semifluid membrane that envelops every muscle, bone, blood vessel, nerve, and organ. Dr. Rolf believed that balance and poise could be reestablished by manually manipulating and stretching the body's fascial tissues. She called fascia  the organ of change, and said that injury, chronic stress, or other trauma can lead to its deterioration, because when fascia becomes solid and rigid , it restricts the movement of muscles and joints.

 Rolf practitioners release fascial adhesion by use of pressure applied with the fingers, knuckles, and elbows. It  helps to reorganize the tissue back to its proper geometric planes by lifting, lengthening, and balancing the body segments. Balance is an essential fact in Rolfing, because one segment of the body is supportied by the other one.

     The pressure of the fingers or knuckles can be painfull, it depend on the depth and degree of tissue adhesion, but  Dr. Rolf said that it is not the pain, it just a reaction, a salutary hurt. 

  In order to increase the effectiveness of the physical manipulations,  there was developed a system of movement education called Rolfing Movement Integration. Sessions  taken every week help the teacher and client to investigate the possibilities for developing more balanced movements. These movements can then be applied to all aspects of daily living: sitting, standing, breathing, running, and housework.

  Several scholars investigated effects of Rolfing. The study concluded that: movements were smoother and less forced, more dynamic and energetic; carriage was more erect; and there was less evident effort to keep up a held position.

 In Maryland another scholars indicates that Rolfing enhances neurological functioning, reduces chronic stress and promotes changes in body structure. 

 Modern bodywork was strongly influenced by Ida Rolf's investigation. Her research into fascia was very useful for modern body therapy. Rolfing can help almost everyone, and especially people who suffer from pain and primness related to mechanical imbalances and poor posture. 

Aston-Patterning

 Judith Aston, dancer and fine artist was involved in car accidents that left her with debilitating injuries. Traditional medical treatment wasn't successful for her and physician recommended her to see Ida Rolf. Their meeting had unexpected results for Judith: because of her background in teaching dance and movement, and her ability to train people to see and perform movement, Ida Rolf asked her to develop a movement education system for Rolfing in order to help maintain the structural alignment achieved in the sessions. This system was called Rolf-Aston Structural Patterning. Since 1971 and during the next seven years Judith trained Rolfers in movement analysis and in the basics of movement education.

   In 1977 she began to continue development of Aston-Patterning. Aston noted that all movement is naturally asymmetrical and that a healthy body develops asymmetrically through adaptation to the kinds of work, recreation, sports, and other daily activities. Else she focuses on how to distinguish what is changeable, and what is a true asymmetrical limitation.Aston also teaches students to work the deep tissues without pain, this technique she called "spiraling". 

  Four basic moments of Aston's work:

1. movement reeducation, 2. massage and soft tissue bodywork,

 3. fitnes training,  4.environmental "design" 

Participants learn to integrate Aston's principles of movement with specific methods for strengthening and stretching the body.

Here is an example of session from an Aston-Patterner: practitioner started with an evaluation of the way participant walked.Then he noted that participant's weight distribution was off balance-heavy on the heels with his feet pointed at different angles. Then she explored his body with massage. Any resistance or tension was dutifully marked on a chart. The chart helped participants see the patterns of tension in thier bodies.

After the massage, participant returned to walking, and  explored ways to distribute his weight more evenly. The result (he said) was a new stride that felt springy and light. Now he can recapture that ease of movement he felt on the session at any moment of his life.

  Aston-Patterning can be used not only to develop coordination, but also for managing painful conditions such as backaches, headaches, and tennis elbow. Some physical therapists use Aston-Patterning as an adjunct for clients suffering from neck and back pain, and for working with adolescents with postural dysfunctions.

Reich, Bodywork, and Emotional Release

                Ida Rolf noted that people who undergo bodywork often experience powerful emotional releases. She viewed  person's emotional state as the projection of his structural imbalances.

Wilhelm Reich, a former student of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, developed a system of bodywork and breathing that is capable of bringing often buried emotions to the surface, because he realized that feelings and emotions are reflected in the body posture and behavior of the individual.  His work left a deep impression on many who later developed their bodywork techniques, including Dr. Rolf.

  The main place in Dr. Reich's techniques took the act of breathing. He asked his patients to breath deeply and continuously, thus he was able to unlock chronic physical tensions and release pent-up and unconscious feelings and memories. Many bodywork practitioners  used the power of the breath in their techniques. 

   Dr. Reich asked his patients to kick, hit, or move in various ways that were designed to release the musculature and hidden emotions. 

Today many bodyworkers have adapted Dr. Reich's techniques. Psychotherapists also recognize the importance the body plays in maintaining psychological health, and many have integrated bodywork and massage into their practices.

Hellerwork

 This technique was developed by Joseph Heller - the first president of the Rolf Institute. Hellerwork combines movement education, deep touch  and verbal dialogue. This approach works to facilitate an awareness of the mind/body interrelation. Hellerwork directs the interwoven complication of the mechanical, psychological, and energetic functioning of the human body. The mechanical aspect of Hellerwork is designed to properly align the body with the gravitational field of the earth. Heller felt that the physical changes achieved by manual manipulation could not come about permanent change in the body. He united a thematic approach to each of the eleven Hellerwork sessions in order to provide for his clients a basis for organizing the emotional satisfaction of the work.

 For example, the first Hellerwork session is designed to unlock unconscious holding patterns in the chest with the help of a dialogue between the practitioner and the client. The dialogue is intended to call attention to emotions and attitudes that affect the physiological process of breathing.

Hellerwork teachs clients how to sit, stand, walk, lift, or run in ways that are appropriate to the natural design of their bodies. This technique minimizes mechanical stress and create more effectual use of the body's energy.

 

   The experiment of Hellerwork took place in a computer software company in Portland, Oregon. At the end of the series, every employee reported a reduction in physical stress and an improvement in his posture. The majority  experienced an improvement in their work relationships and an improved ability to communicate. Moreover, 84 percent noticed less back pain, 81 percent felt that their job effectiveness had increased,.

 Hellerwork can help people suffering  from pain or those who are in conditions that may be the result of injury, emotional trauma, or sustained stress. There are over three hundred trained Hellerwork practitioners in the United States.

The Trager Approach

  In 1980 Milton Trager together with Betty Fuller established the Trager Institute. In 1927 Dr.Trager developed approach to movement reeducation.This approach is based on a method of gentle, rhythmical touch combined with a series of movement exercises. The purpose of this technique  is: to help the client recognize and release habitual patterns of tensions that are present in posture and movement. According to this approach the practitioner is taught to feel how the client is holding his body, and by applying various rocking, pulling, and rotational movements to the client's head, torso, and appendages, the therapist gently loosens tense muscles and rigid joints.

  Instructors from the Trager Institute explain that their aim is to use motion in muscles and joints to produce positive sensory feelings, pleasurable feelings that enter the central nervous system and begin to trigger tissue changes by means of the many sensory-motor feedback loops between the mind and the muscles.These gentle movements provoke a sense of deep relaxation and help increase flexibility and range of motion in the client's joints and limbs. Dr. Trager believes that the unconscious mind will always mimic movements that result in an improved sense of pleasure and freedom, and the practitioner should help to plant this sense of health in the client's body.

 

  Dr. Trager coined a term  mentastics means "mental gymnastics." These exercises are free-flowing, dancelike movements designed to increase awareness of how the body moves for the purpose of learning how to move without exertion. A person may just let his arms or legs drop to one side or the other, or adding a small shaking or swinging motion to a foot and leg while walking. The exercises are designed to strengthen the relaxation. 

Dr. Trager's approach can help people suffering from severe neuromuscular disturbances resulting from injury, disease, and aging, including disorders such as polio, muscular dystrophy, and multiple sclerosis. Besides, many athletes have found that the work has increased their effectiveness of movement and stamina. Today over nine hundred currently certified practitioners work all over the world. 

Bonnie Prudden Myotherapy

 Bonnie Prudden is one of the world's leading authorities on physical fitness and exercise therapy. Thanks to her research the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports was created in the1950s. She developed a technique for relieving pain that is simple enough to be taught to a child.

 Prudden's work is based on use of manual pressure to sensitive spots known as "trigger points." Her work grew out of Janet Travell, M.D.'s pioneering medical discipline called trigger point injection therapy, where sensitive and often painful muscular spots are injected with a saline or procaine solution. In 1976 Prudden discovered that a relatively deep pressure of between five and seven seconds applied to these same points could relieve pain for almost 90 percent of all muscle-related pain without the use of invasive and often very painful injections. At first, she worked mainly with backs. It was taking only a few sessions, often only one, to get rid of pain without exercise and injections. Arm, shoulder, and neck pain all surrendered, even several patients who had severely contracted arm muscles soon too were free of pain and their limbs free of contracture.

Trigger points can be caused by any trauma at any age including prenatal injury, accidents, childhood and sexual abuse, any and all sports, the repetitive motions connected with occupation or hobbies, and any invasion of the body from injections, to hundreds of necessary and unnecessary operations. Trigger points are often exacerbated by disease, substance abuse, and aging. This spots may lie quietly for years within a muscle, and can be "fired" as a result of certain physical or emotional conditions. For example, muscle spasm is the result, and it causes more pain and creates a spasm-pain-spasm cycle.

   The cycle must  be broken in order to relieve  the pain. The pain may be temporarily relieved by medication, but the resident trigger point remains.  However, another bout with physical or emotional stress can reactivate the painful cycle. This is the cause of chronic pain. Once a trigger point is created, others often appear in the surrounding area. For successful treatment, these attendant points must also be cured.

In her books, Pain Erasure and Myotherapy, Prudden describes how to locate the major trigger points by touch: pressing on a trigger point can be relatively painful.

  One should press each muscle with the finger at one-inch intervals. When a tender spot is found, apply pressure until the first sign of discomfort. Anything more is not necessary. Because the tension underlying these trigger points is of a chronic nature, several sessions will be needed to expel the trigger points and their attendants. This exercise, help to reeducate the muscle to return to normal function.

In order to prevent old tensing habits from taking over, one should do three-minute sessions five times a day. After the session, stretching exercises are needed to retrain the muscles to relax.

Bonnie Prudden Myotherapy is used  in many clinics now. This technique can be effective in relieving muscle pain, strains, sprains, dislocations, tension headaches, and migraines. Myotherapy also treats temporomandibular joint syndrome, and neck, shoulder, arm, hand, back, chest, and abdominal pain. Hemorrhoids, spasms in the muscles surrounding the prostate, as well as impotence and incontinence when resulting from spasms in the muscles of the pelvic floor, can also benefit. Myotherapy is invaluable in leg, lower leg, knee, and foot pain and cramps caused by aging. Diseases such as arthritis, lupus, and multiple sclerosis also respond, as they all affect muscles that house trigger points.

Myotherapy can also lessen pain caused by a number of organic and structural diseases that are episodic in nature, and can sometimes be used diagnostically by physical therapists. Myotherapy could be well developed for preliminary use before consulting a physician, and help to avoid a series of expensive diagnostic tests. Thus it could make a significant contribution toward solving the problem of the escalating costs of medical care

Reflexology

  Reflexology is used to relieve stress and tension, stimulate deep relaxation, improve the blood supply, and promote the unblocking of nerve impulses to normalize and balance the entire body. 

There are reflex areas in the hands and feet that correspond to every part of the body, including organs and glands, and these parts can be affected by stimulating the appropriate reflex areas.

    William Fitzgerald, American laryngologist from St. Francis Hospital (Connecticut), was the first who introduced European system known as zone therapy. Reflexology evolved out of it. Dr. Fitzgerald discovered that he could induce numbness and alleviate certain symptoms in the body by applying finger pressure to specific points on the hands and mouth. Eunice Ingham, a physiotherapist, used Fitzgerald's work as the basis for what is known today as reflexology.He mapped organ reflexes on the feet and developed techniques for inducing a stimulating, curing effect in those areas.

  Reflexologists use precise pressure to release blockages that restrain energy flow and cause pain and disease. This pressure is supposed to affect internal organs and glands by stimulating reflex points of the body. Practitioners often target the breakup of lactic acid and calcium crystals accumulated around the 7,200 nerve endings in each foot. It explains that fact that we feel so much better when our feet are treated. Nerve endings in the feet have extensive interconnection through the spinal cord and brain to all areas of the body.

    Founder of the American Academy of Reflexology, Bill Flocco, conducted a study of the effects of reflexology in alleviating pre-menstrual syndrome (PMS). Results indicated a 62 percent reduction in the PMS symptoms of those undergoing reflexology treatment.

 Today, reflexology is practiced by nearly twenty-five thousand certified practitioners around the world. It is helpful for people with hypertension, anxiety, or painful conditions of the body.

 Reflexology is a safe and simple way to induce relaxation and a genuine sense of well-being.