Manual Therapy

Soft Tissue Mobilization is a form of manual physical therapy where your physical therapist uses hands-on techniques on your muscles, ligaments, and fascia with the goal of breaking adhesions and optimizing your muscle function. Physical therapists are specially trained to use his or her hands to push, pull and knead your muscles, ligaments, tendons, and nerves in specific ways to help bring you pain relief and return you to functionality.

Joint mobilization is the careful use of skilled graded forces to move a joint in a desired direction. Unlike stretching of a muscle, joint mobilization is specific to the capsule of the joint itself. Gliding of the joint is usually used to improve motion and normalize joint function. Joint mobilization also has the added benefit of controlling pain. With joint mobilization, the restricted joints are loosened up through manual therapy by providing amplitude and slow velocity to the affected joint. The joint is moved in a manner that the patient usually cannot do on their own.

The manual pressure provided by a physical therapist during myofascial release is used to “release” the tension and stress in the fascia and other structures within targeted treatment areas, thus restoring normal movement, relieving pain, and reducing your risk of further tissue damage.

Muscle energy techniques are implemented by a physical therapist to lengthen shortened muscles and to mobilize restricted joints. A voluntary contraction is utilized against a controlled counterforce applied from the therapist from a specific direction and position. It’s an active procedure and generally well tolerated by patients.