Release Your Pain: 2nd Edition - EBOOK. Dr. Brian James Abelson DC.

take the time to verify that they have official and current ART certification, and that they are certified for treating the area of your injury. For example, someone with a lower extremity certification will not be able to help you with a wrist injury. For more information, check the official ART website (www.activerelease.com) for a list of ART Certified practitioners in your area.

How does an ART Treatment Feel?

      Dr. Abelson performing ART on the Psoas Muscle

      Active Release Techniques is non-invasive, very safe, has virtually no side-effects, and has a record of producing excellent results. However, ART is not a magic medical bullet or a cure-all.

      Treatments can feel uncomfortable during the movement phases as the scar tissue or adhesions ‘break up’. This discomfort is temporary and subsides almost immediately after the treatment. It is common to feel a duplication of your pain symptoms during the treatment (a good indication that the problem has been identified).

      Treatments take about 8 to 15 minutes for each area treated and may require 6 to 8 visits for optimal results. Patients report that ‘It hurts good’. To avoid future injuries, ART practitioners often instruct their patients in specific rehabilitative exercises, provide postural recommendations, and explain to their patients the mechanism of injury occurrence.

      Strength, speed, and endurance will often improve within the first few treatments. We often have our patients test these factors after two or three visits. If no improvement is seen, we know that either we have not found the source of the problem, or the affected area needs to be further strengthened.

Achieving Success with ART

      ART requires a strong sense of touch awareness!

      ART is used to:

       Find the specific tissues that are restricted.

       Physically work the soft tissues back to their normal texture, tension, and length, by using various hand positions and soft-tissue manipulation methods.

      This strong sense of touch awareness can take a considerable amount of time and experience to develop. Active Release Techniques is successful in its treatment of soft-tissue injuries because of its logical approach to diagnosis and treatment. ART practitioners are trained to:

      Locate the root cause of the problem. This often means the practitioner must perform a biomechanical analysis to determine all the kinetic chain relationships and soft-tissue structures which were affected by the injury.

      Locate and remove the specific adhesions or restrictions that have formed. This requires a great deal of tactile sensitivity. Not only must the practitioner feel which areas have been affected, but they must also feel the release of the adhesions from those same areas during and after treatment. A competent ART practitioner should feel the increase in relative movement between the different layers of soft tissue at the treatment site. It takes time and experience to develop this strong sense of “touch-awareness”.

      Work throughout the entire kinetic chain. The exact location of a restriction or adhesion varies between individuals. This may mean that the practitioner must treat a larger kinetic chain in order to achieve optimum recovery.

      Consider the body to be one complete, dynamic, and functional unit. ART practitioners do not restrict their attention and treatment protocols to just the area of complaint. Areas requiring treatment vary between individuals, even when the patients are diagnosed as having the same condition.

      Understand the importance of follow-up exercises for the patient. Exercise is an essential part of any treatment regime as the exercises develop strength, power, and flexibility and help to prevent the reoccurrence of the injury. Abnormal motion patterns that developed as a compensation mechanism tend to remain even after the initial removal of restrictions. Exercise is essential if you plan to retrain these muscles to develop “normal” motion patterns, and for complete tissue remodeling after an injury.

Improving Athletic Performance

      Once patients have received ART treatments to resolve obvious soft-tissue injuries, they are often keen to return to activities and sports that were previously denied to them by their injury.

      In sports, the quality of your soft tissue is a key element that should not be ignored. By improving the quality of your tissues (no restrictions, adhesions, or tightness) you can reap the rewards of faster recovery, increased speed, improved range of motion, increased strength, reduced injuries, and improved performance.

      Your muscles are like rubber bands. When there are no knots (restrictions) in them, they can easily store and release energy. This directly translates into improved performance. This is why soft-tissue techniques such as ART have helped take Olympic athletes to gold medal status. ART works to improve the overall quality of soft tissue.

      ART Performance Care concentrates upon removing restrictions that reduce range of motion, decrease strength and cause alterations in normal movement patterns. This process can result in significant increases in sports performance – more power, strength, and flexibility.

      During the analysis phase of Athletic Performance Care, the practitioner performs a biomechanical analysis to locate any dysfunctions along the entire kinetic chain that may be affecting performance. This may entail having you perform your athletic activity while the practitioner observes your body motions. For example, a runner may be asked to run short distances, while the practitioner looks for the degree of:

       Hip extension and flexion.

       Torso rotation.

       Internal or external hip rotation.

       Degree of vertical motion.

       Lateral motion in the body.

       Pronation and supination of the feet.

       Shoulder motion.

      An alteration or deviation in any of these motions would give the practitioner a good idea about exactly which structures are affected, and from this, a means to determine which aspects of the kinetic chain should be treated. The practitioner can then use specific hands-on procedures to treat each identified restriction.

      It is really quite amazing to see how fast athletes can improve their performance after being treated in this manner. I have treated Golfers on the Nationwide Tour and have seen them move into the top 10 positions after just a few treatment sessions. I have also seen Ironman triathletes taking lead positions within a short period of time. Once, after working on Olympic-class sprinters for close to a week, I saw these Olympic medal winners break their own personal records.

      ART Performance Care has been used to improve athletic performance for everyone from the amateur athlete to Olympic Gold medalists. Many well-known athletes and celebrities have benefited from ART Performance Care, including:

       NHL, NFL, and CFL players.

       Figure skaters who have gone to become Olympic gold medalists.

       Professional soccer players.

       Power lifters and winners of Mr. Universe.

       Members of several Olympic teams, including the nations of Canada, United States, New Zealand, and Australia.

       Numerous PGA Golf professionals.

Biomechanical Analysis