Soft Tissue Manipulation Therapy

How Soft Tissue Manipulation Boosts Athletic Performance

Soft Tissue Manipulation is a manual technique used to relax muscles, reduce pain, increase joint and muscle range of motion, and restore overall strength. Soft tissue manipulation is used to break down adhesions in soft tissue caused by surgery, immobilization, overuse, and trauma.

But what is soft tissue? Soft tissue basically refers to parts of your body that are not bones and vital organs.

In this article, we’re going to explore the four types of soft tissue and how soft tissues play a role in athletic performance.

What Are the Four Types of Soft Tissue?

Soft Tissues are of many types, but since we’re looking at this from an athletic point of view, we’ll focus on the four main types: muscles, tendons, bursae, and fascia.

Let’s briefly go through what they are to better understand the different soft tissue manipulation techniques we’ll be looking at later.

Muscles

Muscles are what helps your body move around. They are soft tissue composed of connective tissues and muscle fibers. Muscles contract and lengthen to facilitate movement. Muscles move when activated by motor nerves. Each muscle fiber contains protein filaments responsible for contractions.

Tendons

Tendons are soft tissues that connect muscles to the bones and help your body produce movement. Built differently from muscles, tendons are composed of collagen and elastin, so they cannot contract. Yet, they are strong and stiff. They have a low metabolism because they have a smaller blood supply. The stiffness of tendons allows them to store and release energy like a spring.

Bursae

Bursae are small and flat pockets of fluid that help muscles and tendons slide and glide against each other while reducing friction. Bursae are present all around the body in places where different structures may rub against each other.

Think of yourself in a dense crowd, constantly bumping and rubbing against people. Bursae are like a small, fluffy water balloon that you all can wear that cushions your skin against the constant friction (just don’t try this in real life!).

The body is composed of more than 140 bursae, each acting like a mini water balloon.

Fascia

Fascia is the thin, white, fibrous, and stretchy tissue that envelops around your muscles. Fascia also forms sheaths or tunnels that allow the safe passage of blood vessels and nerves. Fascia wraps around all your body's organs.

Although fascia may look like one sheet of tissue surrounding your organs and muscles, it's made of multiple layers with a liquid called hyaluronan in between. Fascia are designed to stretch as you move. Fascia can dry up and tighten around the muscles, thereby restricting your mobility.

Think of it this way: if you were a muscle, fascia would be a protective scuba diving suit that you'd wear. If your scuba suit got really tight for whatever reason, it would limit your ability to move.

How Are Soft Tissue Injuries Managed?

Below are some common methods to manage soft tissue injuries:

Active Release Therapy

Active Release Therapy (ART) is a non-invasive manual therapy used to correct soft tissue restrictions causing mobility problems and pain. The goal of ART is to break down scar tissue, and it can be used for acute and chronic problems in soft tissue. ART works like a massage but with stretching and a short range of motion.

Fascial Distortion Model

Fascial Distortion Model (FDM) is a method of identifying a patient's source of injury and pain through the patient's description of their symptoms. Once you tell your therapist about the issues, they proceed to correct any distortions with deep hands-on pressure.

Fascial Stretch Therapy (FST)

This is a neuromyofascial manual therapy that focuses on treating the connective tissue rather than an isolated muscle. FST therapies assess passive, active, and resisted ranges of motion in various movements and positions.

Functional Range Release

This is an advanced system of soft tissue treatment that focuses on specific muscle palpation while assessing, localizing, and systematically treating adhesions and scar tissues.

How to Strengthen Soft Tissue?

Strengthening your soft tissue has a highly positive effect on your athletic performance. Therefore, it’s in your best interest to strengthen them as much as possible.

There are five ways you can improve your soft tissues’ functional strength.

Foam Rolling

Foam rolling is highly effective when done properly. It's a great way to release tight and sticky myofascial. Releasing myofascial will improve your muscle mobility, flexibility, and performance. Start with long, gentle sweeps and work your way up to more tingly areas of your muscle.

Jumping directly into hard and deep foam rolling will achieve the opposite effect. Start slow and work your way into a deeper massage.

You might look funny doing this in the gym, but don’t mind the people watching! Focus on your muscles.

Stretching

Stretching is one of the best ways to keep your soft tissues at optimal performance levels. Yes, I know we can get lazy with stretching because it seems like a waste of time. But if you have time to pee, you have time to stretch.

If you find static stretching boring, I recommend dynamic stretching; it's more effective and you won't fall asleep.

Progressive Tissue Loading

One of the major causes of soft tissue injury is loading the muscle too fast and too soon. Sometimes, this can also occur due to overuse.

To prevent this, the muscle must be loaded slowly and gradually, instead of immediately. You don’t simply bench press 225 lbs without first warming up with 135!

Soft Tissue Prehab

You’d agree that it’s important to get a routine dental check-up, right? Same goes for your soft tissue.

It's highly recommended that you get routine tune-ups for your soft tissue to keep its strength and functioning at optimal levels.

Give your soft tissues some love and care through treatments such as myofascial release and cupping therapy. They'll thank you back by boosting your athletic performance.

Eccentric Exercises

Most exercises that we know are concentric in nature, which involves muscles contracting and shortening. Eccentric exercises, on the other hand, involve the lengthening of the muscle fibers as they engage.

Eccentric training is effective in training the tendons by reducing muscle tension. So, if you're experiencing problems in any muscle group, consider using eccentric training to strengthen your tendons and lower muscle activation.

What Are the Five Basic Steps for Treating a Soft Tissue Injury?

The five steps to treating a soft tissue injury is a big place of RICE…R.

RICER stands for Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation, and Referral. Let’s look at each of these.

Rest

This basically means stop! If a muscle or motion is causing you pain, stop using it. Immediately rest the muscle in pain.

Ice

To reduce swelling, apply ice for twenty minutes, three to five times a day. You must rest at least 1.5 hours between each icing session. Put the ice in a towel or use a bag of frozen peas.

Compression

Wrap a bandage around your swelling to compress it well. It should be firm, not tight.

Elevation

Elevate the area of injury. If it’s on the lower body, elevate it above the hip. If it’s on your arm, use a sling.

Referral

This step involves a medical professional. Get your injury assessed and plan for the required rest, rehab, and treatment.

Can You Exercise with Soft Tissue Damage?

Not immediately and not intensely. Remember the rest part in RICER?

Now, it is recommended that you give your injured muscle some movement after 72 hours. But do not stretch or do anything intense with the muscle.

See how you feel with light activity first and then gradually move towards more intense activity until your injured muscle is back to its normal old self.

Final Thoughts

Since soft tissue plays an important role in your day-to-day activity, let alone sports, it’s very important that you give it lots of love and care. Make sure you strengthen them with eccentric exercises and progressive overloading while also focusing on stretching and foam rolling them. If you’ve injured any of them, make you RICE and have the injury assessed. There are various methods of healing your soft tissues.

Take good care of your soft tissues, and they’ll take good care of you.

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