“Are there any ways besides just deep massage to loosen up those tight tissues and knots I’ve got?”
Soft tissue mobilization is a really valuable hands-on tool for skilled manual therapy providers to utilize in helping reduce pain and to reduce barriers we have in our bodies to easy and natural movement. Too often our muscles can become facilitated by pain and inflammation, or even be literally injured themselves, and develop tight bands, fascial (connective tissue holding things together and interconnecting our body) restrictions, literal tight balls or “knots” of contracted fibers called trigger points, or adhesions/scar tissue that has gone beyond normal healing – each can produce pain and limit free mobility.
While literal direct “hands-on” soft tissue techniques are helpful we also utilize Instrument Assisted Soft Tissue Mobilization (IASTM) techniques with various interestingly and sometimes oddly shaped tools to facilitate normalization of soft tissue. There’s a wide array of specific names and techniques (sometimes with copyright or trademark restrictions on citing that name or brand, so we won’t bore you with fancy names). Our PT’s have a host of different IASTM techniques that they may utilize to get soft/connective tissues moving freely again.
