Offering a Range of Techniques for Optimal Results

Hands-on Massage & Deep Tissue Work

Deep Tissue Work includes deep muscular massage to tight muscles with warm oils to open the structures and prepare them for lengthening and realignment.

Trigger Point Therapy

Trigger Point Therapy is the sustained pressure on trigger points that are small mounds of pain in the muscle tissue. These points emit a radius of pain around them that can cause joint and muscle pain further away from the site. As the pain is emitted in treatment through pressure, the mounds become smaller and effect less and less pain on the surrounding area.

Myofascial Release

Myofascial Release is gentle held pressure applied to the many layers of fascia that hold our bodies together but can be distorted by life's many bumps, bangs and injuries, and stay that way until released. If you are thrown from your bike with a force in a specific trajectory, your body will get up and look the same, but the layers of fascia under your skin and between muscle and bone maintain that thrust force in a distorted pattern of tightness and often eventually pain. This tight and restricted sheath does not show up on an x-ray, MRI, etc. — so you may be told everything is fine, but you know you are not. This is what you are feeling. The fascia has multiple layers that wrap around our bodies like Saran wrap, giving us our form and contour, holding our muscles close to our bones as well as bone to bone together. Fluid is supposed to bathe these tissues between the layers, as they glide on one another when we bend and stretch in all different positions. As we age, the fascia structures get distorted, dry and stick to one another, loosing fluid between them and decreasing the amount of flexibility. This is why elders often look as though they are trapped in their own skin. Myofascial Release is the technique that gently unhitches these layers, allows them to move on one another and helps to restore ease of movement again.

Craniosacral Therapy

CrainioSacral Therapy is the therapist gently interfacing with the cerebrospinal fluid’s fluctuating, normal rhythm from the cranium to the sacrum to facilitate releases in the body and promote optimum healing and health. Blockages in this rhythm can cause decreased function in the body parts where it is affected and can also be far-reaching — resulting in decreased range of motion, weakness, and lack of coordination. Removing blocks to the cerebrospinal fluid’s fluctuation is akin to allowing the body to breath again and enabling it's Life Force to support the body's function. For more info, check out the Upledger Institute website.

Muscle Energy Techniques

Muscle Energy Techniques are hands on skills used to release the patient’s tight structures by using the patients isometric contraction resisted by the therapist.

Strengthening

Strengthening exercises — in session and for in the home — are given for all parts of the body in need and progressed throughout treatment as issues are relieved. Strength conditioning is achieved through use of various exercises and equipment such as therapy balls, bands, and weights.

Realignment

Realignment refers to the restoration of the given natural position of your limbs from when you were born into the world. It is the the working through layers, releasing of ligaments, the unwinding of bone on bone, the release of fascia, toward restoring that supple, beginning position that lended itself to beautiful ease of motion.

Ergonomics

Ergonomics is the applied science of arranging and fitting office or home equipment in a manner that is most efficient for the body to use with the least amount of stress or tension on the body. These changes can make a significant difference in pain levels and fatigue in the places we spend most of our days.

Feldenkrais

Feldenkrais is a technique pioneered by Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais, utilizing slow, rhythmical movements, involving the patients attention to the quality of their movement and how smooth it is. This attention to these slow, rhythmical movements, sometimes aided by the therapist, allow the brain to notice where unnecessary muscle fibers are firing and causing tension. The brain then hones the use of these firing fibers, leading to more coordinated, natural and tension free movement. This technique is based in physics, physiology and neurology, and improves posture, coordination and flexibility and relieves joint tension. For more info, head over to the Feldenkrais Institute website.

Core Stabilization / Therapeutic Ball Work

Therapeutic Ball Work uses balls of all sizes for a multitude of exciting functions: Core stabilization, Feldenkrais, Strengthening, Range Of Motion, Balance, Coordination, Self Massage, Self Myofascial Release, and Occipital Release.

Aquatic Therapy

Aquatic Therapy can be a very beneficial part of physical therapy treatment. Because of the buoyancy effect of water, painful joints can move almost weightless to their fullest potential without the force of gravity through them. Weaker parts of the body that are hard to lift can be aided by the buoyancy of the water to new ranges which cannot be achieved on land. In addition, the constant inward pressure of the water against every inch of the body that is submerged, provides a small resistance against which to strengthen and improve endurance. This can be heightened or lessened by the therapist with aquatic tools such as fins, belts or hand paddles.

Yoga

Yoga is a type of exercise in which you move your body into various positions in order to become more fit or flexible, to improve your breathing, and to relax your mind.

Meditation & Breathing

Meditation and Breathing are important factors in stress relief and opening of structures from within. Learning these techniques helps one to handle stressors in the future with less effect on the musculature, posture and fascial tissues.

“Valerie is so knowledgeable! I have tried many types of therapies to help my severe back injury of lumbar spondylolisthesis and nothing has worked! Valerie’s hands-on treatments, advice, and exercises to promote long-term healing has succeeded in resolving my pain for the first time in seven months. I’m so grateful!"

— Meighan M., Bedford MA