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Chris Sarjeant is an experience and qualified therapist. He is
locally and internationally well known for good results in easing aches
and pains. Your time spent in therapy will benefit you long after your
treatment, making you feel renewed and revived.
SWEDISH MASSAGE
Swedish massage is one of the best known treatments, helping
to reduce the affects of stress and tension now common in everyday life.
It increases circulation throughout the body, relaxes the muscles, breaks
up muscle knots and helps reduce back pain.
REMEDIAL
Remedial massage incorporates scientific massage techniques to
alleviate pain and discomfort in the body’s musculoskeletal system. This
helps to treat specific ailments such as neck, back, sprains and strains.
SPORTS
Sports massage can have a valuable place in any training program. This massage warms and loosens the muscle, ligaments and
tendons and increasing flexibility and maximizes performance, helping
reduce strains. This plays a major role in preventing injuries.
BENEFITS OF STRETCHING WITH MASSAGE THERAPY.
Since the 1980's sports therapists began
using the stretching components of PNF with healthy athletes to
improve performance. PNF (proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation) is a
form of stretching to maximize greater gains than from normal stretching
alone. This muscle technique incorporates the use of the patient's
muscular efforts in association with the therapist's effort in a variety
of ways. PNF is a form of stretching that uses an isometric contraction
prior to the stretch to achieve greater gains than normal stretching. It
is a well conceived and extremely effective physical therapy developed in
the 1940's and 1950's to rehabilitate patients with paralysis and
especially stroke victims. The therapist can focus on stretching just one
muscle or a group of muscles and can also use these stretches for
softening hypertonic (too-tight) muscles to reduce discomfort of deep
massage or trigger-point work. It can especially benefit those that have
problems from too tight muscles and stress related tensed muscles. For
anyone that wants to keep fit and supple at any age level this can be a
very good form of treatment with a regular massage session.
I
use intuitive therapy, a mixture of all three therapies plus PNF
stretching. This helps to give a relaxing massage with the benefits of
remedial massage to help loosen tense muscles
By having regular massages you can
clear away the build up of toxins loosen tight and stressed muscles
revitalizing the Body Mind and Soul.
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When a muscle is
at rest it receives a small but constant blood supply but when it is
being exercised blood is forced through the muscle. Massage has the
same effect as exercise on a muscle .It increases the blood flow and
because of this similar effect massage can be thought of as a form
of muscle exercise just as exercise can be thought of as a sort of
massage because of the rubbing and pressing of muscles against each
other. Massage creates a pumping effect by forcing the contents of
the venous and lymph vessels into the
circulation and creating a vacuum to be filled by
the fresh blood from surrounding
tissues. This increase in circulation has added
benefits:
Nutrition is
improved in the muscles by the action of massage. As fresh blood
from surrounding tissue is moved
to the area being massaged it brings in fresh oxygen and
nutrient, nourishing the muscular tissue. With regular massage
therapy this will result in an actual increase in the size of
muscle, this can be beneficial for lazy and wasted muscles.
Kellogg says
"Massage produces an actual increase in the size of the muscle
structures. The muscle is also found to
become firmer and more elastic under it's
influence "
McMillan wrote
"The muscles are strengthened and made to grow by manipulation.
When a muscle
becomes fatigued by the accumulation of metabolic waste produced
from muscular action, massage will encourage the return of these
wastes to the circulation for elimination by natural channels.
Massage
of tight, knotted and even fibrosed muscle tissue has been proven to
have great effect directly through the
loosening and softening of tissue and indirectly through the reflex
effects of improved blood and nerve function
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Blood
circulation
Venous blood is normally forced toward the
heart by the contraction of the
surrounding muscles during
activity. The greater the activity, as in increased sports
training etc, the greater the compression of muscles against
the veins and increase in venous blood flow. This is
thought to increase the amount of blood brought to the
heart
resulting in an increase in the rate and force of the heart
beat thus creating an increase in arterial blood flow to the
peripheries.
Massage
being a passive exercise has this same effect. By emptying the
veins with a mechanical action, a vacuum is created for blood
to flow just like squeezing any soft
tube will empty it of it's contents.
Studies
by Barr and Taslitz showed an initial decrease in both
systolic and diastolic blood pressure after a twenty minute
back massage with a delayed increase in systolic and an
additional, but small decrease in diastolic pressure.
Other
studies have proven that the red cell count of the blood
increases following massage thus having a beneficial effect
for anaemia and causing an increase in
circulating oxygen as in exercise.
A
local effect is also created producing a hyperaemia of the
area accompanied by reddening,
warmth and increased sensibility.
On the
lymph flow
Lymph flow can be directly stimulated by the action of manual
lymph drainage (Vodder
Technique). However, as the soft tissue structures of the body
such as the fascia around and between the muscles are
very high in lymph vessels the lymph is
propelled during muscle
manipulation creating a draining effect of cellular waste and
oedema.
On the
nerves
Touch
excites a nervous response - as
soon as tactile sensation is
received at the
sensory nerve endings a nervous impulse is triggered. The
nervous stimuli pass along the afferent fibres of the
peripheral nervous system to the spinal cord and disperse
through the central and autonomic nervous systems
producing various effects in any
zone supplied
by the same segment of the spinal cord.
The
nervous system responds to the sensory stimulation of massage
and can result in a shift in motor impulses and a
re-establishment of homeostasis by the disruption of existing
patterns in the central nervous system. This can result in
either capillary
vasodilation or constriction, relaxation, pain relief and
sedation or stimulation of
sensory reception.
These effects are known as Reflex Effects. |
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