What's a Fascia Release aka Myofascial release? Focus Neck and Back Pain

September 29, 2017 Posted by Jolita Brilliant in Blogs on Massage 4360

Fascia Release

Recently I have attended a class (2017 September) on back and neck injuries with Dr. Ben Benjamin in Concord, CT. This professional has been doing massage over 40 years now, since he was 20 years old. He taught us new techniques on advanced Fascia work for neck and back pain. Also how important it is to address ligaments as well as muscles when a client is experiencing pain in certain areas.

Not only muscles can cause pain in your back, neck or anywhere else(e.g. hand of foot), as well the tense and injured ligaments, by repetitive strain, work, life accidents etc.

Ligaments bind bone to bone, tendons bind bones to muscles.

Neck and Upper-Mid back

Let’s look more into ligaments that could be causing neck and back pain, in some other post I will expose tendons.

These are ligaments around your spine in the neck and upper back area (a lot of them!):

Nuchal (ligamentum nuchae)
• Supraspinous ligaments
• Interspinous ligaments
• Intertransverse ligaments
• Supraspinous ligaments

• Interspinous ligaments

• Intertransverse ligaments

And you neck and upper back spine is surrounded by these muscles:

Muscles:
• Sternocleidomastoid
• Trapezius
• Suboccipitals
• Scalenes
• Splenius capitus
• Splenius cervicis
• Levator scapula

In order to make your neck(or back or anywhere else) not to hurt sometimes a licensed therapist (e.g. me) has to separate these ligaments from muscles and skin and brake up scar/tense/inelastic tissue. It is done by performing myofascial stretching, aka similar to “massaging” but more precise, usually slow and somewhat light to deeper or deep pressure. This work requires good anatomy knowledge and experience. I personally believe in using some oil in some particular areas, some therapists might choose not to during myofascial work. Also I do not believe in “light” myofascial work., it will not help most people, these medium to little deeper work is required in most of my experience with clients.

Lower Back Anatomy

The same method is used to heal lower back pain.

Pelvis & vertebrae anatomy:
• Ilium, ischium, pubis
• Sacrum
• Lumbosacral joint
• Sacroiliac joint
• Spinous process
• Transverse process
Ligaments:
• Supraspinous and Suprasacral ligaments • Interspinous ligaments
• Intertransverse ligaments
• Sacroiliac ligaments

Iliolumbar ligaments & Sacrotuberous ligaments

Muscles:
• Erector spinae
• Quadratus lumborum
• Gluteus medius
• Tensor fascia latae

The Fascial separation must be performed on these lower back muscles and ligaments the same way it is done in the neck but just using different techniques because of the different muscle structure.