mf - story #5628 - unavailable

posted by unavailable on October 14th, 2010 at 3:09PM

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posted by dennisn on October 14th, 2010 at 8:27PM

Cool. Have you tried wrapping your yoga mat around it? It should be quite soft, except for the edge?

I'm skeptical about their "myofascia-adhesion" theory though. Take this anatomical view of a leg, for example:

The layer between the skin and muscles is very thin, it doesn't touch the bulk of the muscle fibers, and there doesn't seem to be much room for movement between the layers anyways. I'm not saying massaging is therapeutically useless necessarily, just that the explanation given in that article doesn't seem to add up :P.

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posted by unavailable on October 15th, 2010 at 10:24AM

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posted by dennisn on October 15th, 2010 at 10:40AM

Ah yes -- those foam insulation jackets -- sexy! I love DIY-ers. :D

From the bit I've read (a few wikipedia articles on various massaging), it sounds like more quackery :P. It shouldn't be too surprising for the reasons I gave above. I mean, normal "stretching" or "flexing" of the muscles should do far more to "detach" the skin layer from the muscles -- if they are even attached in the first place. I just don't see how they could be attached, unless there was some really serious internal injury. I have heard the term "knots" used so many times -- do you actually feel them, or are they just a poetic description of the phenomenon? If yes, what do they feel like? Do you think they are actually the aforementioned adhesions? (If I cut off the skin over them, would I find a crusty tissue adhering to the muscles? I somehow doubt that :.) I sometimes have lumbar back pains -- do you think I could feel "knots" anywhere there? ( doubt it.)

(On a somewhat unrelated note, during my readings, it turns out chiropractice and acupuncture are bullshit, and all massaging techniques in fact do nothing more than reduce "stress" :P)

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