Fascial Voice

Mystery Gift !

Somebody sent me this wonderful book called ‘The Extracellular Matrix and Ground Regulation” by Alfred Pischinger, one of Germany’s leading scientists. Dr. Pischinger, a Viennese anatomist, was an MD who was the head of the department of histology and embryology at the Medical Facility of the University of Vienna.

I read this book years ago when the English translation first came out. This represents 30 years of research on the fascial system. I quote a lot of this information in my Myofascial Release seminars.

Dr. Pischinger has stated that cells are not separate entities, which is the traditional way of looking at it, but part of a continuum of the extracellular matrix and the consciousness that flows through it.
 

The extracellular matrix is the collagenous web of fascia that allows the fluid of our body (the ground substance) to hydrate our entire body. Dr. Pischinger found that “disturbances of the matrix regulation can significantly compromise homeostasis efficiency, eventually causing depletion and organ failure. Stated simply, every function in every living body involves the fascial matrix in one way or another. Every cell of the body is nourished via the matrix and all the waste products of cellular metabolism likewise, pass through the ground substance. The matrix is also the terrain in which all immune responses and tissue repair processes take place.”

Dr. James Oschman is a brilliant man and a world-renowned expert in the energetic aspect of the human being and has written a wonderful book I highly recommend called Energy Medicine: The Scientific Basis. As I have been saying in seminars for quite a while now, start paying more attention to the word integrins because you will be hearing more about it in the future. The molecules called integrins are tiny filaments that pass through the cell membrane connecting the extracellular domain with the cytoskeleton and nuclear matrix within the cell.

Dr. Oschman also states that the fascial system is basically a semiconducting liquid crystal.

Dr. Pischinger’s understanding of the extracellular matrix transmits changes to the central nervous system and the brain by extension throughout the whole body. The fascial extracellular matrix is a holographic/fractal non-linear system that is very involved in phase transition.

The founder of osteopathy, Dr. Andrew Still, has many great awarenesses on the fascial system. One of the things Dr. Still said is that all disease emanates from the ground substance of the fascial system.

Hydration is not just water going down our throats, but it becomes hydration when it enters the cell. Also, nutrition is only of value if it is capable of entering the cell. The oxygen also is not getting into the cell, nor is the biochemistry hormones, information and energy necessary for every one of the cells to thrive. Traditional science could not have ignored anything more important !

The meta paradigm of traditional science is terribly flawed and incomplete. They basically view us as just bags of chemical being treating chemically or by surgery. Of course, they think we are just mindless machines. How insulting.

It is time to come out of the dark ages of healthcare and face reality –  the fascial system is the most important system because it is the conduit of our consciousness, that supports and keeps every cell of our bodies alive !

You and I were taught logical theories that explained how various techniques accomplished their goals. Theories are stories we make up in an attempt to explain phenomena. I graduated from the University of Pennsylvania as a physical therapist in 1960. I am a very logical person and accepted the theories taught in school and in scientific texts as factual. My entire belief system was then violently ripped apart in an instant when I experienced a life-changing injury. I had been a good athlete; sprinted the 100-yard dash in track events, threw the shot put, played football, skied, drove motorcycles, swam and excelled at competitive karate and weightlifting. But after being injured, my strength was tested both mentally and physically.  
 
Let me go back to the trauma that changed my life, my belief systems and radically expanded my mind and view of healing. I was training for an upcoming weight-lifting competition and went to the gym to work out. There was no one else there to help “spot” me. I was doing high repetition squats with more than 300 pounds, and I got to the point where I couldn’t get up from my last repetition. I had been a gymnast when I was younger, so, I decided to do a “back roll” to get out from under the weight, forgetting that when your hands are grasping a bar with more than 300 pounds on it, your hands can’t let go. I crashed on the ground with tremendous force, herniating the disc at L5 and ripping my lumbar ligaments. I laid on the ground stunned and unable to move. 

I felt numb from the waist down. After the numbness and shock subsided, the pain began to run through my body, and my body shook violently. In that horrible instant, the things I loved most—motion and competition—were taken from me!

Life became a struggle. I tried every form of therapy available only to be disappointed with temporary results. No one wanted to get better more than me, but I felt trapped by the pain. I was in worse shape than most of my patients. An orthopedist recommended spinal surgery and fused my L5 area. The surgery helped decrease the intensity of the pain, but I still had constant pain, fatigue and limited motion. 

There was a point when I realized nobody was going to help me but me. I started to lie on my living room floor and treat myself. I found if I put pressure into the areas that hurt or felt hard, it helped to relieve the pain. However, I was still very strong and was trying to “force” my way through the restrictions. Over time, I learned to be gentler and more patient when I treated my tight and painful areas. I learned the problems were not at the “end range” as we were taught. The real problems were in the fascial restrictions that lie before the “end range,” which created symptoms, limitation of “end range” and the resultant pain. 

As I continued to treat myself, I made such a dramatic recovery that I realized I had stumbled onto something very important. I had to share this knowledge with my patients and fellow therapists. I found as I put sustained pressure into the tightness, I started to have strange sensations that went far beyond the origin and insertion of a particular muscle. I eventually realized that the principles I was developing must be releasing the connective tissue, the fascia. It was during this time I also fully realized how vital the mind-body connection is in the healing process. 
 
I hope to share with you the principles I have developed from my own personal experience and gleaned from clients/patients from around the world over decades. We will explore an exciting new paradigm that is emerging and the important concepts of piezoelectricity, fiber optics, mechanotransduction, fluid dynamics, quantum physics, fractal geometry, complexity and chaos theory, and cellular consciousness. 

Health care is undergoing a massive shift, and you and I are the pioneers of an exciting change that will lead to a significantly higher quality of care.

JOIN US IN THE IMPORTANT MYOFASCIAL RELEASE EVOLUTION IN HEALTHCARE !

Sincerely,

John F. Barnes, PT

Myofascial Release for an Aging Population

An aging population needs health and wellness options that are gentle. For many, myofascial release is a great choice.

Myofascial Release can be helpful at any age level, from right after birth to those in their 90s and beyond. The primary principle of myofascial release is that there is no force, therefore injury to a client is very unlikely.

My perspective of myofascial release is to utilize the body structure as a handle to reach deeply into tissue, and instead of brute force, we use gentle sustained pressure into the restricted area—and we wait. There is a time factor that is very important here. As we wait, there is a biochemical, bioenergetic, hormonal response down to the cellular level.

Myofascial Release for Clients in Hospice

Myofascial release techniques can be extremely helpful for a variety of issues, some of which, like back pain, more regularly occur as we age. The fascial system tightens over the years as we go about our every day lives, falling as kids and carrying too-heavy boxes as we move as adults, for example. So much of the resulting pain and tightness, both from physical exertion and trauma, affects our fascial system.

A lot of therapists that I have trained work in the hospice situation, where people are nearing their end of their lives. They say that it is wonderful in reducing their pain and often times, they are able to cut their medications with a doctor’s approval, even sometimes eliminating it. Even clients in their 90s can experience improvement in their range of motion.

Myofascial release can be done in a bed or even in a wheelchair. Massage therapists can stand behind the client and do what is called a yoke technique to free up the trapezius and shoulder complex. For clients in a wheelchair, massage therapists can reach across from behind and release the pectorals and the abdominal/psoas complex.

Consider, too, having a client lean forward, resting on a pillow on a table in from of them, and performing myofascial release techniques to help release their back, lumbosacral area and quadriceps. Myofascial arm and leg pulls can also be very helpful.

So many therapists that work in a hospice situation report back to me that the fascial system released so many of the past traumas with their clients, helping them to release past memories and pain that many have struggled and suffered with for most of their lives. The fascial system is an electromagnetic field and the structural restrictions that come from holding tension solidified the memories that are no longer available to the conscious mind.

Myofascial Release for Jaw, Neck and Back Pain

A 92-year-old woman was referred to me by her TMJ specialist. She had constant uncontrollable mandibular motion, neck pain and back tightness and stiffness throughout her entire body. We worked with her for a little over a month and she did quite well. She came to me on her last day to thank me and tell me that me and my staff had been wonderful.

She described how she’d been a very active woman all her life and was beginning to get very scared because she was losing her memory and was in so much pain. She said she felt like her mind had cleared and the constant mandibular motion had ceased and her neck and back pain were now gone. She was moving much more fluidly and even said she felt like a 20-year-old again!

The bodies of most older patients have stiffened considerably, their head and neck are pulled forward. So many things can be attributed to old age are actually untreated fascial restrictions. No matter what the age is, myofascial release will do no harm and will help significantly coupled with your level of expertise of massage and bodywork.

Myofascial release can act as a catalyst to greatly enhance your ability in the important work that you are currently doing. It is truly the missing link in health care.

John F. Barnes, PT

The John F. Barnes’ Myofascial Release Approach® is safe, gentle, and produces consistent results in reducing pain, headaches, fibromyalgia symptoms, and increases range of motion and function. We hope that you find the following comments from some of our trained therapists to be helpful in clarifying the uniqueness and importance of our Myofascial Release Approach for your professional development.

What Your Colleagues Are Saying…

I often verbalized frustration over not knowing what to do for pain, especially after being put in charge of a chronic pain program at the hospital I worked in back in 1992! John Barnes’ MFR I was the first MFR class I took, although not the first manual therapy course, as I studied many other approaches in attempt to learn techniques and “tools” to help my patients. I soon learned that John's classes were vastly different than others because I was producing amazing results.

John's way of teaching, while presenting the science behind the work, is unique in practically every aspect, even I recognized this from the beginning. The seminars are orchestrated to facilitate learning regardless of where you are in your hands-on training and palpatory skills. The pressures used with guidance, the postural assessments, feedback on technique received, time frame held, physics lesson reminders, listening skills presented, sensory information encouraged are so important to the end result. I have learned as much about what I need to learn to help facilitate change in my patients as I have about specifics, and this is long term knowledge.

No other approach I have encountered provides the results, and I have a successful, word of mouth, PT practice built on the principles I continue to learn from John's seminars (with gratitude.) Dianne, PT, RMT, Texas

I have studied with John since 1994, as others have said “thumbs of steel” is old school. John teaches a full spectrum approach that encompasses structural work to purely energetic. John teaches us we can only take our patients/clients as far as we are willing to go ourselves. John's students are able to apply the techniques immediately upon returning to their clinic. Peter, MSPT, New York.

John Barnes style MFR has completely changed the way I treat in my clinic. The seminars are like nothing you ever got in PT school. I have always had a strong interest in manual therapy, and took electives in school, but I rarely use any of that “knowledge” in treatments anymore. I am busier than ever, and in the middle of the most severe economic down turn this country has seen in a generation.

Are the seminars worth it? You bet! Every penny, and then some. The best part is that repeats are half price. Why would I need to repeat any seminar? Because there is so much in every seminar and I was so busy trying to absorb and process as much as I could, that I missed things, or misremembered, or just needed a brush up. And, you get three days (or more) of treatment! I do realize that I am extremely biased on this topic, as I have taken almost every seminar JFB offers, some several times. As John likes to say in MFR 1, don't believe a thing I have said until you experience it for yourself. Get treated, take a seminar, jump in with both feet and find out what we are all talking about; you won't regret it! J. Christopher, PT, DPT, Pennsylvania

I'm an Occupational Therapist and would like to encourage any OT's out there reading this to take John's courses. I practiced for over 30 years before beginning my MFR journey, and have since completed nearly all courses and repeated some. I have left all my old OT techniques behind and now do only John's version of MFR with incredible results. The best part is that their healing has been at a much faster pace and with little or no pain. I've seen their lives become richer as they heal emotionally and spiritually, as well as physically because of John's holistic approach. An example of how truly remarkable this work is, is that a traditional PT sent me, an OT, her knee patient because I could get more range and function from that leg than she could! I have paid for all courses out of my own pocket, and think it would have been a bargain at twice the price. There are no words to describe how MFR performed using John's methods changes your patients' and your life, and ripples out to all those in your life's circle. MFR saved my knee which would have been replaced, removed many physical pains and restrictions, and has allowed me, at 67, to live a non-stop, active life filled with energy, joy and love. I don't know of another manual therapy approach that can make such claims. Marilyn, OT, Illinois

I was the “queen of deep tissue massage”. Steel thumbs, knuckles, elbows. It was so hard on me, and on my clients. Yet, this old form of Myofascial work, which is really soft tissue mobilization, cannot compare with JFB MFR. This is true, long lasting “release” of the tissue, body, self. And as mentioned, often so gentle, patient sustained holding, following the tissue as it begins to soften and stretch. Not forcing. Whole body perspective, as everything is connected. As you've seen, MFR is a generic term, and often is just another way to say soft tissue mobilization. JFB MFR engages with the core of fascia, and catalyzes change in the collagenous layer and ground substance. Real change. Experience the difference yourself - get treated by an experienced Barnes’ Myofascial Release® therapist! That's the best way to begin feeling the difference. Eileen RN, MRT, CMT, Indiana

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Understanding Myofascial Release Therapy

Myofascial release therapy, developed by MFR, is a specialized form of manual therapy that focuses on the fascial system of the body. Fascia is a continuous web of connective tissue surrounding and supporting muscles, organs, and other structures. When this tissue becomes restricted due to trauma, inflammation, or surgical procedures, it can lead to pain, headaches, fibromyalgia and many women’s health problems and dysfunction. The goal of myofascial release is to identify and eliminate these restrictions, thereby restoring mobility and reducing pain, following our core principles. One of the many things that John teaches is ‘Find the pain, look elsewhere for the cause”.

The Importance of Holistic Evaluation

When you choose a myofascial therapist trained in our methods, it's vital to ensure they conduct a thorough, holistic evaluation. This assessment should encompass not only the immediate symptoms but also consider the entire body's alignment and function. Our trained therapists look beyond the superficial manifestations of discomfort, seeking to understand the intricate interactions within the body that contribute to dysfunction.

Qualifications and Training

Selecting a myofascial therapist who has received training from MFR is essential, given the complexity of the fascial system. Our practitioners undergo extensive training in myofascial release techniques, participating in advanced workshops that emphasize both theoretical foundations and practical applications. This rigorous training ensures you receive the highest standard of care.

Experience and Specialization

Experience is key to the efficacy of myofascial therapy. Therapists with extensive practice in our techniques possess the nuanced understanding necessary to identify and address the root causes of fascial restrictions. Some therapists may also specialize in areas relevant to specific patient needs, such as post-surgical rehabilitation or sports-related injuries, ensuring tailored support for each individual.

Evaluating Treatment Philosophy

At MFR, we advocate for a treatment philosophy that resonates with patient values and goals. Myofascial release is most effective when administered as part of a holistic, patient-centered approach to healing. Our therapists prioritize authentic healing, focusing on facilitating the body's natural ability to restore itself rather than merely providing temporary relief from symptoms.

Individualized Treatment Plans

A competent myofascial therapist trained by MFR will craft an individualized treatment plan that aligns with your specific condition, history, and overall health goals. Clear communication and collaboration between you and your therapist are essential in ensuring the treatment plan is both effective and achievable.

Integration with Other Therapies

The effectiveness of myofascial release is often enhanced through the integration of other therapeutic modalities. Our therapists, knowledgeable in various complementary therapies such as osteopathy, chiropractic care, or acupuncture, can provide a more comprehensive approach to treatment. This synergy of multiple therapies facilitates a more robust healing process, addressing various aspects of dysfunction simultaneously.

Collaborative Care

In cases involving multiple healthcare providers, effective communication and collaboration are crucial. Our myofascial therapists are committed to working alongside other professionals, such as physicians or physical therapists, ensuring a cohesive and coordinated treatment plan that leads to consistent, satisfactory outcomes for you.

Assessing the Therapeutic Environment

The environment in which therapy is administered plays a significant role in its effectiveness. We believe that an optimal therapeutic setting should foster relaxation and healing, providing a sense of safety and comfort. Our therapists strive to create an atmosphere of trust and respect, encouraging open communication and active participation from you throughout the process.

Safety and Professionalism

Safety is our top priority at MFR. All therapists adhere to stringent professional standards, ensuring that practices are conducted ethically and safely. This includes maintaining cleanliness and being attentive to your comfort and well-being throughout your sessions.

Patient Testimonials and Outcomes

Evaluating patient testimonials and outcomes can provide valuable insights into a therapist's effectiveness. Positive testimonials and documented cases of successful outcomes can serve as testaments to the proficiency and efficacy of MFR-trained therapists. We encourage seeking referrals from trusted healthcare professionals or peers to further validate a therapist's credibility.

Continuous Professional Development

A commitment to continuous professional development is indicative of a therapist's dedication to excellence in their field. Therapists trained by MFR engage in ongoing education and stay abreast of the latest advancements in myofascial therapy, demonstrating a proactive approach to providing you with the highest standard of care.

Conclusion

Selecting the right myofascial therapist is a pivotal step in achieving comprehensive healing. By considering factors such as qualifications, experience, treatment philosophy, and therapeutic environment, you can make informed decisions that align with your health goals. A skilled MFR therapist addresses symptoms while empowering you to understand and tackle the root causes of dysfunction, ultimately leading to improved outcomes and an enhanced quality of life.

In the pursuit of optimal health, your choice of a myofascial therapist can make all the difference. By prioritizing authenticity, collaboration, and patient-centered care, therapists trained by MFR can facilitate transformative healing journeys that restore balance and vitality to your body.

For more information, please click on the tabs above across the blue bar at the top of the page for more information about our treatment centers, upcoming seminars, the MFR Therapist Directory and our Facebook group, MFR Insight, where we welcome all therapists, physicians, patients, potential patients, etc. to join our over 13,000 members! Here you can ask questions and enjoy information about Myofascial Release and others’ experiences as patients and therapists.