Positional Release
A Simple Chronic Pain Treatment

Positional release, also known as strain counterstrain, is a good painless way to loosen constricted muscles. It is a good chronic pain treatment. I often refer to it as magic. I refer to it this way because all you have to do is put the painful muscle into a position of ease and wait for the healing to occur.

Used to treat tender points, this method of treatment works very well. A tender point is not quite as bad as a trigger point. If the person I'm massaging has no referred pain around a tender area, I'll usually do positional release on it. If that doesn't seem to work, I do trigger point therapy. Trigger point therapy is much more aggressive and I use it as a last resort.

To relieve tender points you need to know some anatomy. The important thing to know is the origin and insertion of the muscle you're working on and what action that muscle performs.

I'll give you an example using simple non-medical terms. Lets say you found a tender point on the bicep. The bicep's origin is above the elbow and its insertion is below the elbow. When contracted the bicep causes the elbow to bend.

Hold one finger on the tender point in the bicep. With the other hand lift the forearm of the person you're working on to bend the elbow. This needs to be done through passive movement so make sure they don't help you by bending their elbow themselves. As you bend their elbow monitor how the tender point feels. You want to stop moving their arm when they don't feel the pain in the tender point anymore.

You may have to move their arm in towards their body or out away from it. When you get to the point where they no longer feel pain under the finger you're using to press on the tender point you've reached the position of ease for that muscle. Stay in that position for about two minutes. When two minutes are up slowly ease out of it.

Now that's what I call magic!

Here is an example of positional release. Notice that all she's doing is shoring the distance between the origin and insertion of the muscle. Here is the whole DVD, if you're interested in learning more about the technique.

Did you like that video? It just gives you an example of the things you need to know to give a great massage. These Online Massage Video courses provide more detailed instructions.