Active Release For Musicians.

Whether you play guitar, bass, drums, violin, saxophone, harmonica, or any other instrument, you are at risk of developing something called a repetitive overuse injury. A repetitive overuse syndrome is exactly what it sounds like, it’s a problem that develops often times in tendons, ligaments and muscle because of using that particular tissue for long stretches of time without giving the tissue time to relax.  We also commonly see these types of injuries or syndromes in people who spend long hours on computers typing or using a mouse because they overuse the muscles in their forearms.

When a muscle is overused while playing an instrument, what happens is the tissue becomes what is called “fibrotic”.  This is a fancy way of saying the tissue becomes hard and fibrous.  The tissue loses its natural elasticity.  Instead of the muscle stretching nicely like a rubber band while you play your instrument, the muscle is now like a piece of leather.  Imagine trying to stretch a leather belt, this is the consistency of a muscle that has become fibrotic.  The problem now is that because of the inability of damaged muscles to stretch, these muscles pull on both of their end points, or insertion and attachment points.  Now you’ve set the stage for tendonitis.

In order to treat this problem, we will first go through what you don’t want to do:

#1) Take ibuprofen and hope it goes away.  Yes this will temporarily take the pain levels down, but will do nothing to correct the underlying problem discussed above.

#2) Get a cortisone injection.  This will also temporarily dull the pain and reduce inflammation, BUT it will also permanently weaken and damage ligaments and tendons.  This is not a good solution.

You need to find someone who specializes in Active Release Techniques.  This is one of the only hands on techniques or treatment systems that can naturally, safely, and effectively fix repetitive overuse syndromes.  Why?  Because with ART the provider is breaking up fibrotic adhesions in soft tissue while also lengthening muscles that have become short.  There are over 600 patented protocols in ART.  Also, it’s what the professional athletes use when they are injured or have a nagging problem that won’t go away on it’s own.