Råd fra en gammel behandler

Most of you who read this article work, like me, with manual therapy, whether you are a masseur or work with other techniques.

I started 20 years ago in the world of manual therapy, like you, I spent time learning anatomy, and techniques to release tissue, stretch, knead, tighten, from basic techniques to more complex ones, until I met someone and little by little he help me to look at everything from another perspective.

If I knew what I know now, most of the techniques I would not have studied, for example I would not have studied the Breuus technique, and yes, maybe I would even have spent less time on anatomy
Sacrilege?
I am not saying to completely ignore anatomy, but it is not as necessary as many colleagues might think.

Because? What is more important?

Physiology and biology, because understanding how the body works is much more important than knowing what the anatomical details are called.
We know that most, or almost all clients come with chronic, semi-micronic or recurring problems. We do not usually have clients who have sprained their ankle on the same day.
Our clients come with headaches, back pain that happens several times a year, frozen shoulders, .

If you agree so far, you will also agree, if we think that, if there is no breakage (bones, tendons, muscle fibers) the body in a few days repairs itself,

So, the next point is to realize that if most of our clients do not have acute physical problems, do not have breaks or serious issues that require surgery or emergency medical treatment, we understand as I said before that our clients are people with chronic pain. , semi-micronic or recurrent.

And why am I entertaining myself with this?

Because I imagine that you have already realized that what I want to tell you is that the fabric, the structure is not the most important thing.

What is only more important if I want to be a manual therapist?

Understand the physiology and biology of the client.
Here we will learn that chronicity does not depend on the tissue, we already know how important states of low but chronic inflammation are (the first stage of inflammation before a sprain is physiologically normal, but 10 days later there should be no inflammation), so what information is being sent by the afferent nervous system (paravertebral nerves, splanchnic nerves and vagus nerves) via humoral, why the brain remains alert and continues to send proinflammatory cytokines? what happens with a client with chronic low back pain)? Why do we have an intestinal dysbiosis that keeps the nerve plexuses irritated? Why do the descending pain inhibitory pathways not work for your client with scapulohumeral pain? But not only is this information, there are more axes than those mentioned that directly affect, not only chronic inflammation, but for example neurological diseases, such as for example the relationships between the small intestine brain axis.
Today we know that the enteric system is the second brain, a brain older than the one in our heads. In this enteric system, it controls peristaltic movements, but it is also related to metabolites, the microbiota, the production of neurotransmitters…
We have other important axes such as the hypothalamus, pituitary, adrenals, and others, such as the hypothalamus, pituitary, all of them are related to the different reactions, systems, and metabolic effects of the body.
But the important thing is that if I started studying manual therapy I would focus here, because it is here where the client’s body is failing.