Chiro Clinic ~ Active Release Technique: How Does It Work? What Can Art Treat?

Most of us now live in a world of repetitive strain. In this world, it is most efficient to have an individual become specialized in a certain job or task. Skills such as typing, using a phone, using tools, lifting, bending and carrying, often have one thing in common: they are done repetitively in certain job settings. This is the environment where repetitive strain injuries occur. Fortunately, Active Release Technique (ART) offers effective treatment for a repetitive strain injury.

When a muscle or tendon is repetitively used, it will soon develop tension within that muscle. When a muscle has sustained muscle tension, it will have a tendency toward a lower concentration of oxygen within the tissue due to the fact that the small capillaries have more difficulty “squeezing” blood through the tight muscle. Your body's reaction to poor oxygen within a tissue is to lay down scar tissue. Scar tissue is like a sticky, fibrous glue which requires no oxygen to do its job of sticking things together or helping to maintain tension. Really, your body has just found a way of adapting to this need of muscle tension in a low oxygen environment by laying down scar tissue and maintaining tension, but not increasing the need for oxygen. This all sounds quite clever at first, however, as more and more scar tissue is created the muscle or tissue will become tight more easily and maintain this tension even at rest. Sustained tension will result in a further decrease in oxygen with additional scar tissue formation until the individual starts to experience symptoms.
Let's use a common example to explain how this works. Jane has been using a keyboard all her life. Initially in her first few months as a journalist she had sore hands and forearms, but this eventually went away. Ten years into her new job she has started to experience the occasional bouts of numbness in her fingers especially after a long week of work or when she works in her garden. Fortunately these bouts go away quickly and Jane brushes them off as overworking. Flash forward a few months and Jane now experiences numbness when she wakes in the morning. Once again Jane can get rid of the numbness quite quickly by shaking her hands. She continues to ignore the symptoms. A year after that, Jane realizes that she is now waking up in the middle of the night with numbness and tingling in her fingers. Jane goes to the doctor and the doctor diagnoses her with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. Jane tries various treatments over 6 weeks but nothing seems to work, so she is booked for surgery. In this case, you can see that the condition really took over 10 years to develop, so not only does Jane need appropriate treatment, but she may need to treat the condition for some time to reverse the effects of the 10 years of repetitive strain.
ART works by breaking up scar tissue and adhesions within and between the muscles, fascia, tendons and nerves, thus breaking the viscous cycle described above. Many conditions are healed or improved with Active Release and include carpal tunnel syndrome, medial or lateral epicondylitis (tennis and golfer's elbow), rotator cuff injuries, plantar fasciitis, groin pulls, hamstring strains and many others. Active Release can also help in the rehabilitation of more acute injuries where lots of scar tissue has formed, such as after severe strains and sprains, as well as a healed fracture. The technique involves the use of a practitioner's hand pressure during certain stretch procedures to break adhesions and allow the tissue to function normally. Not only does it help to reduce the pain or symptoms, but it normalizes or improves the function, thereby reducing the chance of recurrence.
There are certain situations where Active Release may be less successful. The factors that may decrease success include the following: the duration of the patient's symptoms (the longer the serious symptoms are left untreated); if the patient must continue to perform the offending task; if the patient chooses not to do prescribed exercises; if the patient has a pre-existing health condition such as diabetes; if the patient smokes and if the patient has poor nutrition.
Active Release Technique has a great success rate with most repetitive strain injuries. Although the technique may seem quite simple in the way it is performed, Active Release Technique requires exceptional training and experience to be performed successfully.

Dr. Greg Morris
Diamond Valley Chiropractic Clinic
403-933-3088

Dr. Greg Morris was first trained in ART in 1999. Since then, Dr. Greg has been updating his ART skills on a yearly basis. Dr. Greg works with Dr. Natalie Carrington, and Dr. Mike Belding who has also recently trained in ART.