Massaging Muscles in Their Shortened Positions

Nothing is more fulfilling to me than when I feel a person is responding to my service. A muscle melting under my hands is one example.

Muscles melt when the person's brain begins relinquishing its guarding. Guarding is the person subconsciously maintaining a higher-than-natural muscle contraction, day and night. Massaging muscles in their shortened positions triggers a neurological response of relaxation. One of your hands palpates or presses a muscle while your other hand controls muscle length by moving a limb or joint. In this way, your hands make a more direct connection with the part of the person's brain which controls guarding.

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Triggering muscles to melt is only the beginning. Once you notice and relish this response, you have the opportunity to respond back, continuing the dialogue, essence to essence. Service leaps to a deeper dimension.

Massage therapists relax muscles. The muscles need relaxing because they are guarded. Guarding is the person subconsciously maintaining a higher-than-natural muscle contraction, day and night. This article introduces you to the connection between your hands and the person's subconscious awareness. Massaging muscles in their shortened positions triggers a neurological response of relaxation. After reading this article once, any student of massage, beginning, or advanced practitioner will be able to use this simple method. I hope you find that the muscles melt more easily than before. I hope the results from your first attempt will be promising enough to motivate you to practice, so you develop your connection with the people into a truly meaningful service.

THREE EXPERTS AGREE: TREAT MUSCLES IN THEIR SHORTENED POSITIONS

I was first directed to massage a muscle in its shortened position in 1994 by Rich Phaigh LMT. The muscle was the psoas. While the person is face up, one of the therapist's hands grasps under the person's knee and moves the knee superiorly, which shortens the psoas, then the other hand's fingertips friction the psoas. When Rich showed me this position, I found the psoas began to melt almost immediately. I was very curious to learn more.

By 1996 I had attended all four of Rich's 3-day OnsenTherapy workshops repeated one, memorized his 400 pages of accompanying notes and 8 hours of video, spent a week in Eugene apprenticing during his regular practice there, read several books of Osteopathic Techniques and manual methods, and created my own logic charts and assessment sheets. I am not suggesting you do this. I only tell of my wholehearted immersion into Rich Phaigh's technique as an example of how intense practice, curiosity, and self-directed inquiry promote the effectiveness of any technique. Treating muscles in their shortened positions was practiced long before the Osteopathic Techniques arose.

Unlike other forms of yoga, Kum Nye does not emphasize stretches. Instead, the tense muscle group is contracted into a shortened position for several minutes until it fatigues. (Kum Nye Relaxation, by Tarthang Tulku, Dharma Publishing, Berkeley, CA) There is a Kum Nye pose coincidentally similar to Rich Phaigh's psoas release. Don't lie on a massage table or bed; it is too soft to accomplish the pose. Lying on your back, bring one knee at a time up until both thighs are touching your ribs. Contract the psoas as strongly as you can while relaxing the rest of the body. Do not lift your butt off the ground by contracting your abdominals. Trembling will occur, then fatigue. A warm energy sooths the low back. Set the feet back down on the ground and rest. Do this three times. Kum Nye is taught as a way of healing oneself, but not yet taught as a method to heal others.

Kum Nye is usually considered an esoteric energy technique, but I intend to show how shortening tense muscles encourages the brain to respond with muscle relaxation. When I showed the pose to Rich Phaigh, he said it looked like it caused lumbar relaxation by reciprocal inhibition. You don't have to believe in anything supernatural to see the benefit of the neurological response to relax. But first, one more expert.

Lawrence Jones D.O., after treating thousands of people, discovered this: when a tight muscle is palpated with one hand as the limb or joint is brought through its range of motion, a dramatic softening is felt in the trigger point at a certain position in the range (Jones, Lawrence H., DO, Strain and Counterstrain, 1981 by American Academy of Osteopathy, Newark Ohio, p 21-27). No force upon the trigger point is necessary, except to monitor for when it begins to soften. Holding this position for 90 seconds, followed by an ultra-slow return to neutral, ends the guarding. The discovery is that precise positioning alone can trigger the brain's response to relinquish guarding. It sounds simple but the art of precisely moving a joint with one hand (simultaneously assessing its quality of motion) while palpating with the other hand (assessing for softening) requires a good teacher and much practice. This art is not yet taught in massage schools, except as continuing education. What can you do today, to take advantage of this discovery?

When I looked closer at Dr. Jones' photos of treating a subscapularis trigger point, the position happened to be far into medial rotation, which shortens the subscapularis. Dr. Jones' treatment of an infraspinatus trigger point happened to be far into lateral rotation, which shortens the infraspinatus. Dr. Jones did not express this point because he treated joints, not muscles. When you think of it in terms of muscles, the process becomes far simpler!

In each of the three examples above, little or no manual pressure was necessary to trigger the muscles to melt. This in itself is wonderful news. Even more exciting is the news that you already know how to treat muscles in their shortened positions. You already have some skill at palpating where the tight muscles are. For each tight muscle you find, you have already memorized its actions, origin, and insertion. Simply bring its origin closer to its insertion, and then massage the tight muscle by rubbing or pressing as you normally would.

TRY THIS EXPERIMENT

The lumbar sidebenders are massive, dense, and difficult to access. Trying to treat all of the trigger points is time consuming and exhausting, for both the giver and the receiver. To shorten the lumbar sidebenders on the left side, stand at the left side, reach under the person's shins, and slide their legs toward you. Your left hand pushes the hip up into elevation. Now you can leave the legs there, and have both hands free for massaging the shortened left lumbar sidebenders. The muscles are already softer from lack of tensile stress, but feel how much easier the trigger points melt away. If you are not convinced yet, leave them in this position, walk around the right side of the table, and try to make the trigger points on the lengthened side melt. Prove it to yourself: The shortened position is the most favorable for encouraging the brain to change its mind about guarding.

WHY IS THE PERSON GUARDING?

Muscle guarding is a form of self-defense against a threat. The threat can be present, remembered from the past, or anticipated in the future. The anticipation of pain can be anything from physical joint pain to emotional mental pain, or a blend. I do not recommend digging for the emotional component, just as I do not recommend digging for the trigger points. When a natural method is used, little or no force is necessary. If we use force to overcome the person's self-defense, this demonstrates that they are powerless against our superior force. How can this be called service?

THE FINE PRINT; HOW AND WHY MUSCLES MELT IN THE SHORTENED POSITION

Actin and myosin fibers overlap near 100% with many bonds when the muscle is in the shortened position. As the muscle is lengthened, the percentage of actin/myosin overlap lessens, and the number of bonds lessens (Juhan, Deane, Job's Body 1987 by Station Hill Press, New York, p.116-122). Therefore, a muscle is weaker and more vulnerable to separating (micro-tearing) in the lengthened position. You learned this in Muscle Physiology class, but you may not have explored the subtler implications. Weakness and vulnerability in the lengthened position is one reason why the brain decides to increase contraction when it feels threatened. Increasing contraction tends to shorten muscles, which protects them from actin/myosin separation. When you hold the person's muscle in the shortened position, you demonstrate to the person's brain that you support its chosen strategy to reduce the threat of actin/myosin separation.

Lengthening a muscle past its easy motion barrier requires a greater force, which creates tensile stress in the muscle. If the muscle is in pain, tensile stress will increase the brain's interpretation of pain. Annulospiral receptors in the muscle fire stronger and faster whenever the muscle is under tensile stress--reports that may be falsely interpreted by the brain as the muscle length accelerating at a dangerous rate (Korr, I.M.: Proprioceptors and somatic dysfunction, Journal of the American Osteopathic Association 74:638-50, Mar 1975, reiterated by Jones). In the shortened position, this stress is not present, and annulospiral firing reduces frequency and amplitude. Holding the muscle in the shortened position for long enough to demonstrate your patience allows the person's brain to accommodate to the reduced annulospiral signal, and reinterpret that the therapy is safe.

In the shortened position, several of the brain's justifications for guarding have been suspended. The muscle palpates softer already, but it hasn't melted yet. When a muscle is melting, this is not directly caused by the therapist, but created by the person. It is not a mechanical softening of muscle tissue. Rather, a muscle melting under your hands indicates that the person's brain has decided to relinquish muscle guarding. The melting is caused by the person's own decisions, in response to you.

I believe a trigger point is an imbalanced contraction. Two different parts of the brain contract different parts of the muscle. Alpha motor nerves control willful muscle contraction, enervating the majority of muscle fibers. Gamma motor nerves contract only the muscle spindles, where the annulospiral receptors live, in order to subconsciously supervise and coordinate contraction. Alpha contractions arise consciously from the brain's motor cortex while gamma contractions arise subconsciously from the brain's terminal gamma ganglia (Juhan, p.212-214). I believe a trigger point exists when there is a higher percent of contraction in the muscle spindle than in the muscle as a whole. If this is true, the presence of a trigger point would indicate that consciously the person chooses to relax, while subconsciously they feel there is a good reason to remain on guard. The person's will is divided. Different parts of them create actions that are incongruent with each other. I do not know if one part of them is right or wrong. A therapist serves well to help them become congruent--at least balancing the conscious and subconscious orders from the brain to the muscles. When a trigger point melts, I believe this is their resolution of incongruence. Why does the trigger point melt with direct pressure, under favorable conditions like a shortened position?

Even gentle pressure will trigger their pressure sensors to report a significant signal to their brain. If the muscle is palpated up and down its length to find the densest region, pressure on this trigger point will report a mildly irritating sensation to the brain, reminding it of the imbalanced contraction down here. Since the conditions which triggered the guarding are no longer present or greatly reduced by the shortened position, this reminder is likely to urge the brain to reconsider its decision to contract, and send a new message. Melting begins, as a tentative experiment. The therapist's responsibility, however, is only beginning.

To support this experiment, you must respond to the person's response. Maybe you lighten the pressure upon the trigger point; maybe you rock the joint or move it even further into the shortened position. With these silent gestures, you communicate with those parts of the brain monitoring proprioception and sensation, that you acknowledge their response. Maybe you are more direct, saying, "Boy, this muscle is really melting now... Do you feel it sinking?" When you acknowledge in words that it is melting, you reinforce the brain to take a more conscious role in relinquishing guarding. It is your choice which part of the brain you would like to address. In either case, stay with this muscle until it is soft, or until progress tapers off.

If the muscle stops responding before full relaxation, maybe you need to treat this muscle's antagonist first. Antagonist muscles often fight over a joint's position like a stubborn married couple: "I'm not gonna budge until you give me some slack first." For example, the elevators of the scapula like the levator may not fully relax until the depressors like the lower trap and pec minor have relaxed, and vice versa. Placing muscles in their shortened position with one of your hands, while you press or rub the muscle with your other hand, is indeed effective, to begin the relaxation process. However, the nature of therapy is your responding to their response. A two-way communication occurs between the essences of the two people. More occurs during this communication than any person could consciously be aware of. The part of you where knowing and responding arises, knows the part of them where their knowing responding arises. Essence recognizes itself in the other. This is the mirror which Socrates describes (Author unknown. Found in the Socratic Dialogue, Alcibiades, 132c through 133c, included in Plato Complete Works, edited by John M Cooper and D. S. Hutchinson, 1997 by Hackett Publishing, Indianapolis Indiana, the mirror analogy is found on p 591-2) which enables a willing and aware service professional to "know thyself" in seeing the other. It is this therapeutic relationship, which drew us to the service professions.

CONCLUSION

This should be more than enough information for you to begin practicing massaging muscles in their shortened positions. If you practice and study on your own, you won't need any more information from me. It is that simple!

Massaging Muscles in Their Shortened Positions

In 2001 Patrick Moore rediscovered the Melting Muscles technique (muscles relax when the brain feels safe!) As an NCBTMB educator, he travels Nationwide to teach Melting Muscles, Reiki, tendinitis treatment, and an Ethics class on Equal Relationships. He practices massage and Reiki in Phoenix, AZ. A specialist in relaxing the muscles that control the atlas and axis of the neck, his articles have appeared in Massage & Bodywork magazine and Massage Therapy Journal. More about Melting Muscles technique at; http://www.MeltingMuscles.com Class dates and musings at Patrick's blog; http://meltingmuscles.blogspot.com

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