VISCERAL MANIPULATION- Restoring fascial balance in an unusual way
As with any profession, hobby, or chore that we do day in and day out, we are constantly fine tuning our abilities to do whatever task is at hand. For me, the daily task at hand (pun intended!) is massage therapy. I get asked someone often, “what style of massage do you do?”, and I have such a hard time answering that. Almost all massage is a spin-off of Swedish Massage. So, I usually say that, but with a fascial emphasis. What does that mean? I don’t really know, but it’s the best verbiage I have.
In a constant pursuit to learn more about massage and to untangle the body with its fascial twisting, scar tissue chaos, and deeply rooted postural alignment, I found my way into the niche realm of visceral manipulation (VM). VM is taught by the Barral Institute which was formed by an Osteopathic Physician named Jean Piere. Jean Piere himself describes VM as “a gentle manual therapy that aids your body's ability to release restrictions and unhealthy compensations that cause pain and dysfunction. Visceral Manipulation, or VM, does not focus solely on the site of pain or dysfunction, but evaluates the entire body to find the source of the problem. The VM therapist feels for altered or decreased motion within the viscera, as well as restrictive patterns throughout the body and then applies VM techniques. VM therapy re-establishes the body's ability to adapt and restore itself to health.” Viscera is describing your internal organs like kidney’s, liver, intestines, etc..
Since I am naturally drawn to anything that can manipulate fascia and change a body for the better, I got pulled into these courses and the amazing changes it can make for my clients! What I love the most about it, is that together (you as the patient, and me as the practitioner) can untangle your puzzle, find out where pain is originating (It’s often not even where you are feeling it), and change the facial and connective tissue network that works it’s way all the way to the area that you are feeling pain. It’s a long-lasting relief to an often chronic and complicated injury.
To paint a more realistic picture of what is happening, let’s describe a theoretical patient who comes to see me for massage. This patient lives in Bellingham, WA and really loves mountain biking and skiing. His name is Doug (which a endearingly name after my brother’s cute new puppy). Doug works at a computer as an accountant and comes to me with shoulder pain that has been on and off for a few years, but recently he is really annoyed by it, so he is finally seeing massage for relief. It makes a lot of sense that Doug would have shoulder pain as a desk worker. Desk workers and usually leaning forward and into a computer screen to focus on the task in front of them. I start using typical Swedish Massage techniques with an emphasis on fascial unwinding, and Doug and I start chatting about his love for mountain biking and skiing. Eventually, he remembers a ski crash he had five years ago where he faces planted and got whip lash and some lasting shoulder pain. That pain mostly went away, but now every time he has computer work related pain, it’s always in that same shoulder. Doug thinks it must be his dominant shoulder, but I think that a pattern like this isn’t really related to a “dominant shoulder”. With the skill set that I learn and continually refine through classes at the Barrel Institute, I listen to his body and discover a restriction in his liver. I start to feel around for visceral movement in the area and find that his liver mobility is limited and that his falciform ligament (the only ligament that attached the liver to the abdominal cavity), is restricted. Doug essentially whiplashed his liver around the falciform ligament in his crash. Restriction of the livers mobility causes a fascial pattern to lay down which impairs range of motion of the shoulder and thus, Doug’s chronic shoulder pain!
How fun is a puzzle?! This is obviously not the only reason why a person in involved in a mountain bike or ski crash would have lasting shoulder pain, but for some, a restriction in the viscera can limited the range of motion for many non-abdominal body structures.
Our bodies are so individual and full of subtle nuances. I have to always remind myself to not get ahead of the body in front of me and listen to it’s movement patters, the persons history of crashes and work postures and figure out what unique fascial pattern that we can unwind.
If you have gotten this far into this article and you live or are visiting Bellingham, We, schedule a massage and let’s get to working on unwinding your fascial patters!