This post has nothing to do with the Surfari’s song, I just happen to love it.
How many times have you seen a client for a follow up visit and they tell you that they were completely wiped out after their last session? It happens often enough at my clinic that I try to warn people about the phenomenon. They will ask me why it happened and, without reaching into my BS bag, I am often at a loss for a specific explanation.
I remember hearing various explanations in the past, but none were more than educated guesses, disguised as science. Don’t even try to tell me about released toxins. My best guess is that when someone comes in with profound tightness of the soft tissue, this tightness has become a substitute for functional strength. Take away the tightness (disguised as strength), and they feel profoundly weak. Accommodation occurs quickly to overcome this, but the effect can be intense.
What are your thoughts or thoeries?
A number of Foundations in Myofascial Release Semianrs are coming up over the next few months. Please be sure to check out the website for full details:
Walt
I like your explanation.
I have often given 15 minute positional release sessions and had the client say they felt like they had been run over by a truck the next day. There was no working of the tissue that could cause the muscle soreness. It had to come from their own body choosing to clean up after sustained work load imposed by chronic tension.
Hi Hans,
Being run over by a truck is something my clients say as well. Reducing the holding patterns certainly may be the explanation. I’ve not seen anything in the literature regarding this, but I’ll keep on searching.
The issue of wipe out and fatigue after inital Aston-Patterning sessions is frequent enough for me to comment on. I think releasing long standing holding patterns even with gentle releases, can cause this. I think when you release chronic holding patterns, other muscles which haven’t worked optimally due to inhibition from the chronically tight ones, may suddenly have to work in order to balance the structure. Although it is difficult to acertain the amount of soreness or fatigue that will occur, if at all, the people with lots of inflamation in their systems usually have a bigger response (or truck) so to speak. I found that if the client is on high quality nutritional suppliments (antioxidents) this response is much less. So I wonder if there just hasn’t been a study looking at the inflamitory respose to structural changes before and 1-2days post MFR. Is there anyone else thinking there may be some connection. Though not a study, this seems a plausible hypothesis for the chemical theory.
Interesting thoughts on this thread. I treated a women yesterday with a serious headache. Usually, I am able to drastically or completely eliminate these. In her case, not so. She was very hypertonic in the bilateral cervical thoracic regions. Post TX, she felt “much more relaxed” in these areas but the headache was still present. This thread made me think. What happens when a physical release is achieve but the person holds onto the causal energy? Could this cause chaos and soreness?
Hi Steve,
Thanks for checking out my blog.
I think you may be correct about the holding patterns. Any answer to the affirmative would certainly be speculative, as such things are hard to prove, but my gut feeling is that if the causal energy was not released, or worked through, some sense of retention would occur. If someone comes in for treatment while in a major pain state, they can often be too focused on the pain to be present with other things that may be coming up. Stay with it, see what happens, and please let me know.
Regards,
Walt