Straight out of Jane Fonda’s exercise videos in the 1980s, In fact, pain is a warning!

The word “remedial” means “to apply remedy”. Therefore, Remedial Massage is about supporting the body to heal from an injury, tension or pain by changing sensory perception in the nervous system. If your massage is beyond the “good pain point “ and becomes painful while your on the table it is important you speak up
Maybe in your first treatment you didn’t feel it was deep enough? That has a lot to do with neural pathways and pain receptors in muscle cell, when muscles in tension, the sensitivity or sensation may drop. During treatment muscles respond and neural pathways re-establish to again communicate signals or sensations to the brain, we feel the pain after the brain has processed those signals and here is the important part to take into consideration when expecting your pain to be a ‘quick fix’: the signal of pain the brain will send to the body are not only coming from the direct stimuli that started the pain, more over they will be dependant on the overall parts of the complete nervous system, up and down the chain (one part of the the brain may change a signal directly coming from another), the environment a person is in, emotional and mental state a person is at at the time (ie; are they in flight or fight mood with high stress hormones active such as adrenalin and cortisol levels, are they under stress, tried? extra..)

There are fascinating new developments in our understanding of how pain is experienced which are directly related to massage ¹. Our current understanding of pain signal transmission shines more light on the way we experience pain. When signals arrive to the central nervous system they travel via the spinal cord and then ascend through the lower, mid, and upper portions of the brain until they are fully processed. As they travel through the intensity of the signals can be altered. “Various factors can cause pain signals to be amplified; this is called ascending facilitation; hyperalgesia and allodynia. Hyperalgesia; higher than normal sensitivity to pain. Allodynia; pain that shouldn’t be (like when even gently stroking the skin is painful). Obviously our goals of pain treatment are to decrease any ascending facilitation that may be occurring.”²

This research points one of the most integral benefits of massage in pain management is when enjoyable sensations such as in massage are present a ‘quietening’ hof the signals takes place , the upper parts of the brain can send signals to the lower areas and stop pain input. This process is called descending inhibition (or descending modulation).

Going back to my question; “Maybe in your first treatment you didn’t feel it was deep enough?” Now that you understand more about the way pain in transferred, maybe you can understand why after a few sessions and normal function is restored, we are often able to re-apply deeper pressure without the negative consequences of pain.
So, what is good pain ? The Optimal Therapy Zone (OTZ) is that amount of pressure which, when applied to soft tissue with an appropriate massage therapy technique, provides optimal therapeutic results in the shortest period of time without causing undue discomfort. The OTZ is found where the pressure is enough to cause discomfort but not enough to produce voluntary or involuntary splinting of the area which is being worked.

In my massage I don’t claim to release because our body is doing that – we are just helping your mind to change the way is it interacting with parts of your body.

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Safe receiving everyone