There are 5 Essential Principles of Rehabilitation.
The Essential Balanced Bodywork difference is not only the methods and results, but also the delivery and cost of the service. Each session is personalized to each client’s individual needs.
1. Locate and deactivate the trigger points. They refer to the site of the pain symptoms and need to be treated. The contracted (locked up) muscles need to be identified and retrained to alleviate the symptom of pain. When our body is injured, it’s interpreted as trauma. Muscles will tighten up to protect the area. Typically, muscles think the trauma will continue to happen in the future, which will cause a muscle to stay “locked-up” until it is retrained to relax.
2. Restore proper Bio-Mechanics (science concerned with how internal and external forces affect the structure and function of our muscular system).
The way we use our bodies daily has a direct effect on our posture. Remember the last time you were in a car for 4 or 5 hours? When you got out of the car, the back of your legs felt tight. The reason they felt tight is that the whole time you were sitting in the car, your quads, hamstring and hip flexor muscles were being shortened. Because the muscles were shortened, they will pull on the attachment sites in the hip and low back area. When muscles pull on the attachment sites, they can create pain in the joints or even make other muscles tighten up to compensate, which will cause pain somewhere else in the body. For example, many people who have a job that requires them to sit many hours a day, typically complain of lower back pain. If the lower back area is the only area treated to reduce the pain they will only feel better for a few days and then the symptoms of pain will return.
When people overuse their muscles by doing repetitive motions consistently, the muscles create a memory to stay tight and contracted, which can cause chronic pain symptoms over a long period of time. Once the contracted muscles and trigger points have been treated, flexibility, and range of motion will be restored.
3. Restore flexibility. Once the contracted muscles are retrained to relax, flexibility and full range of motion will be restored.
4. Restore strength in the muscles. To build strength in muscles, they must be able to fully contract and stretch. This is easier and less painful to do now because the function of the muscles has been restored. Until the contracted muscles are treated, it will be very painful to stretch or workout the contracted muscles.
5. Build endurance in the muscles. Muscular Endurance refers to the body’s ability to continue using muscular strength and endure repeated contractions for an extended period of time. Muscular endurance is essential in exercise and when doing heavy tasks as it allows the muscles to perform for long periods of time without becoming tired.
The Focus of RoelsMethod
Now that the muscles have been retrained they can fully stretch, and range of motion in the joint will be restored. Now that the muscles can fully contract and relax, we can begin to build strength back by working out or beginning a yoga practice. Once the muscles build up strength, we can then put more stress on the muscle for longer periods of time to restore the endurance of our muscles.
Remember, most of the time what’s causing our pain is not where we feel the pain.
Expectations
• The actual number of sessions is dependent upon a number of things, including how long a client has experienced the symptoms, their physical activity, their work routine, the medications they are on, and their overall attitude about their current situation in life.
• Every client should feel significantly better, if not pain-free, after the first session. Most people would need 2-5 additional sessions to retrain the contracted muscles and restore proper postural alignment.
• Someone who has experienced chronic pain for years will be more likely to need 5-8 sessions over a 3-6-month time period. A pain that is recent like a crick in the neck may only need 30 minutes to treat and retrain. When we identify where the postural distortion is causing the pain, there is typically a huge effect because these muscles have probably never been treated before.
• Clients with positive attitudes about their life circumstances tend to heal faster than people with an overall negative attitude about life.
• Muscles create memories/patterns, and they are unconcerned with what is best for the body. When we do the same things day in and day out, our muscles create a neuro-pathway to our brain that wants to recreate the same patterns repeatedly. For example, someone who experiences deep, achy back and hip pain and has a job where they sit for eight hours a day, five days a week is shortening muscles that connect to the low back. This will create the symptom of pain in the low back. When someone is in a car accident where they realize it’s about to happen, all of the muscles tighten up, and then the muscles think they need to stay tight because they think you are going to be in more accidents. When muscles are in a constant state of contraction, they have to be retrained so they can regain the ability to relax and stretch. If the muscles are not treated, one could continue to experience pain; because the muscles are in a constant contracted state, they will start to atrophy (get weaker), which over time could cause more postural distortions, potentially creating more pain symptoms.
• Most of the time, what is causing the pain isn’t where we feel the pain. If someone simply treats the symptoms, the pain may lessen but it will likely return within a week or so.
• Our Structural Bodywork therapists will locate the trigger points and treat the contracted muscles that are causing the pain symptoms which will rebuild the neuro-pathway from the muscle to the brain. This will allow the muscle to return to a healthy state. When the muscles causing the pain are retrained and the body is bio mechanically balanced, one will not have symptoms of pain.
• The body is a machine, it is the most magnificent machine on earth and is the most valuable possession we are ever given. The body still should be maintained just like any other machine to function at its optimal level. The client that is going back to the same sedentary environment every day will need to come in every month to every six months, depending on how the body feels. The pain will not suddenly return to the way it was before the first session. It is a gradual process. A person will start feeling “twinges” or a little tightness in the problem areas and would then realize the need to come in for a session so the healthy state of the muscles can be restored.
Average Cost of Dr. Office Visits and Traditional Therapy Treatments for Two Months = $600– $100,000 (Physical Therapy, Chiropractor, Pain Clinic)
• Over the counter medications (anti-inflammatory, pain relievers): $10 – $25
• Initial visit: typically pain medicine, steroid (anti-inflammatory), X-ray: $60 – $100 approximately w/ co-pay
• Prescription anti-inflammatory and pain medications to help manage symptoms: $30 – $50 w/ co-pay
• Second office visit: schedule MRI or prescribe PT (physical therapy), possibly refill medicine: $20 – $60 w/ co-pay
• MRI: Depending on Insurance Company policy, anywhere from $100 – $1100 and up w/ co-pay
• Surgery: up to $90,000
• PT: 2-3 times per week for 6 to 8 weeks – $240 – $480 w/ co-pay
• Chiropractic care: 2-3 times a week for anywhere from 1 month to 6 months – $100 – $1400