Stimulating healing: – Your body is an amazing and smart structure that with the correct building blocks can heal itself. Various tissues are stimulated through soft tissue therapy. This initiates a healing response and sets the foundation for the body to make correct adaptations.

Correct messaging in the nervous system: – Pain can arise from dysfunction in your body (the pain is a message that travels from the affected area to your brain, telling it that something is not right!). If this dysfunction continues for a long period of time, your nervous system needs to send more messages to the brain in order to recognise that something isn’t working correctly and needs attention. The upshot of this is that your brain becomes more sensitive to pain signals universally, meaning the pain can increase over and over again! Soft tissue therapy can provide a new input to the nervous system which helps your body overcome this maladaptation and pain signals. This means that the correct information can be sent to your brain. Over time your body is able to re-educate itself on how pain signals should be dealt with and processed.

Improves circulation: – Soft tissue therapy helps to increase the blood flow to an area through stimulation. When the blood flows through the body, oxygen (something that is very important for tissue healing) is transported to the areas which are in need.

Breakdown of collagen fibres: – Collagen is a protein which your body utilises when soft tissue is damaged. Your body is very clever and sends the collagen to lay down and patch over the injury site. Although this is a great short-term fix, the tissue is now unable to operate in the same way as a healthy tissue. This is because the mismatched orientation of the fibres prevents the tissue from contracting correctly. By working on the soft tissue, the fibres are encouraged to be broken down and relaid in the correct direction, becoming much more uniform and stronger.

Relaxation: – Many of us lead busy lives and therefore finding the time to rest is pushed to the bottom of the priority list. The little time that we do find is often spent watching screens and bright lights which keep our brains highly active. This means that we are not able to switch off and crucial nutrients within the body are not replenished. Soft tissue therapy offers you time to rest and focus on your body.

Nuero-muscular: – Naturally, it is common for your body to protect itself when it goes through ‘stress’ or ‘injury’. When this happens, muscle and nerve activity is raised, leading to tissue and joint tightness. Chiropractic care focuses on the nervous system which helps to regulate the nerve activity and how the muscle is controlled, whilst soft tissue therapy helps to regulate muscle activity and how the muscle contracts, uniformly and smoothly. This is why they work hand in hand and why a lot of our practice members find they get the best results when both are combined.

Strength: – Most people think that power and strength are defined by the size of the muscle fibres. It is in fact the ability of a relaxed tissue to contract and return to a relaxed state without issue. Sometimes muscle fibres lose the ability to contract and relax fully due to a build up of collagen (a by-product of training), scar tissue (from injury) or trigger point (the inability for the tissue to relax fully at rest). These can all affect the contractile function of your muscles, which will eventually influence strength and power. Soft tissue therapy encourages the fibres to become uniform and aligned, allowing normal function to resume.

Biomechanics: – When your body is in a state of rest, your tissues should be resting too. However, it is not uncommon for your muscles to be working, even when you are resting. Soft tissue therapy reminds your muscles that they should rest to avoid fatigue, which can lead to injury and discomfort. In turn, this will lead to a better relationship between muscle and joint, which will inevitably affect gait, sports performance and balance itself.

Lymphatic drainage: – Sometimes, following periods of inactivity, injury or surgery the body’s natural ability to remove fluid is damaged meaning it is unable to remove and drain the waste and toxins from the tissues. Some very light techniques of soft tissue therapy can help encourage and regulate the drainage system in your body (also known as the lymphatic system). In turn this can reduce swelling, discomfort and pain, and sensation changes.

Improvement of proprioception: – Your muscles, joints, ligaments, and nerves from soft tissue are constantly sending signals to your brain. When they are received your brain is able to create a map of your body. If these soft tissues are not functioning correctly, the messages can be sent wrong. This can mean that your body will interpret incorrect information, leading to an imbalanced image of your body. This could eventually lead to changes in balance, posture and movement. By applying slow and gentle techniques to the soft tissue the brain has time to receive and interpret the signals and send back the correct information. The more the soft tissue has this input, the clearer these signals become, meaning the body can adapt correctly.

Neuroplasticity and movement patterns: – Naturally, your body wants to survive, whatever the situation. If it is not able to function properly then your brain will begin to change the way you move and get around the problem. This often means that your body will begin to recruit unnecessary muscle groups to perform a simple movement. In the short term, this is good, but overtime you will begin to put tissues under unnecessary stress and burn energy inefficiently. By stimulating these tissues through soft tissue therapy, your brain will be given the information to learn how to utilise muscles correctly again.