Blog | Head to Toe Muscle Clinic

Massage Therapy for Treatment of Neck Pain and Stiffness in Greenwich, CT

When your neck is in pain, nothing seems to work right. Turning your head is a task which forces you to turn your whole body making you feel like a robot. Just holding your head upright is a painful ordeal. Even laying down to bed causes you to brace your body to keep your neck from excruciating pain. Massage therapy can be a great help to many types of neck pain. By helping to decrease tension, helping to heal muscle strain, and increasing circulation that helps to bring fresh nutrients to your muscles. Whether you have pain from muscle strain, bulging discs, or pinched nerves massage can help! The main types of neck pain can be related to soft tissue dysfunction and structural disorders. Soft Tissue Disorders The most common [...]

Massage Therapy For Low Back Pain

There is nothing like low back pain to let you know how much your low back is involved in even the simplest of movements. Something as simple as sitting down is excruciating and involves all of your concentration to avoid severe pain. Low back pain can be frustrating as the pain can be just fine and dandy as you move about your day but the minute you lie down to go to sleep the pain keeps you up at night and prevents you from restful sleep. Massage therapy is an effective treatment for many types of low back pain. Even for conditions involving arthritis, bulging or herniated discs, and pinched nerves: massage can help! Soft Tissue Disorders The low back is a complex structure with many joints and [...]

Massage Therapy for Treatment of Tension Headaches in Greenwich, CT

By Matthew Snow, L.M.T You know the feeling. A dull ache at the back of your head that seems connected to your eye forcing your eye half closed. All you want to do is lay down and sleep off your throbbing headache. The people conversing and laughing are totally unaware that your head is splitting. You try rubbing your temples because somewhere you read that can help headaches. In desparation you see your doctor or neurologist and have tests only to find out you have tension headaches. They give you medicine which mildly helps and they tell you to reduce your stress, but you still get headaches. And they give you no other treatment options. Great. Now what? There is hope for those of you suffering from tension [...]

How Tight Muscles Keep You from Your Best Sports Performance
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How Tight Muscles Keep You from Your Best Sports Performance

Subscribe to our mailing list * indicates required Email Address * First Name * Last Name I'm sure you've been at an exercise class and have been told, or yelled at to "tighten that stomach!" or "squeeze those glutes!" So it is logical that a common question I've been asked is "why are you working out my tight muscles? Aren't tight muscles a good thing?" There is a difference between a tight muscle and a strong muscle. A muscle that is tight has too much tone when it is at rest and strength is the ability to of the nervous system to recruit neurons in the muscle fibers. Strength is really cool to me and is probably a term that means different things to different people. Strength is defined as [...]

The Top 5 Ways Massage Can Help You

Subscribe to our mailing list * indicates required Email Address * First Name * Last Name What's up with massage therapy and roses? What comes to your mind when you think of massage? Fancy white robes with slippers, incense, and candles? Most promoters of massage focus on the relaxation side of massage and while relaxation is a noble goal this neglects most of the very important benefits of massage such as pain relief and normalizing soft tissue dysfunction. Massage therapy is gaining acceptance more and more as being effective in healing soft tissue disorders. What exactly is massage and what can it do? Massage is the use of the hands to affect the health of the soft tissues. If you look up neck and low back pain on [...]

The 6 Best Muscles to Self Massage for Instant Relief of Neck and Upper Back Tension

Subscribe to our mailing list * indicates required Email Address * First Name * Last Name By Matthew Snow, Licensed Massage Therapist All you really need to find relief from neck and upper back tension that results from postural stress or overwork is a tennis ball and a map of where to go. Here are the best muscles to target for instant relief of neck and upper back tension. But before you begin here are a few things to know. As you begin you may feel bumps or rope like tissue and they may be sore. Don't be afraid of them. They are your muscles. You can tell what muscle you are on depending on the orientation of the rope like band. You [...]

Rotator Cuff Injuries and How Massage Therapy Can Help

I am sure most of you have heard of the rotator cuff. You may equate the rotator cuff with baseball. But most clients I have seen with rotator cuff injuries don't play baseball, or sports at all, and many are sitting at a computer all day. There is a reason for this. What Are Rotator Cuff Injuries? This is a back view of the shoulder The rotator cuff is actually a group of 4 small muscles. The function of the rotator cuff is to stabilize the arm into the shoulder socket. Stabilization of the arm into the shoulder socket is required for all movements of the arm and shoulder and the rotator cuff is subject to muscle strains and tendinitis. The most commonly injured rotator cuff [...]

Get Fat in Winter Time with Family and Freinds!

Most people like fall. It is a transition from the dog days of hot weather into cooler months with pretty colors, but with it brings a dread of winter and colder weather to come. However, I appreciate winter and all that it has to bring. My appreciation for winter comes from Chinese Medicine Philosophy which looks at all seasons as necessary stages of life. In Chinese Medicine there is the Five Elements or Five Transitions. Each element has an associated season and an associated organ. Within these transitions there are also emotions. The stages start with water which is the source of all life, and is associated with winter. As the snow covers the frozen earth below the world is dormant and still. As spring approaches the energy shifts from [...]

Disc Problems and How Massage Therapy Can Help

Back in 2007 my first week working in a Rehabilitation office was intense. There were 2 cases of disc herniation in my first day and I remember them well. Both cases had severe pain and were on the verge of tears. It was pain that they had never experienced before and this was their last resort before surgery. I really wasn't sure if they would get better because of the amount of pain they had but each treatment they had they felt improvement. After 4 weeks they were much better and it was such a transformation in their personalities from the first day I met them from being depressed and hopeless to pretty much being how they probably were before I met them. That was seven years ago and I [...]

Ibuprofen for Headaches? No! Get a Massage

Headache Relief and Treatment with Massage Therapy As much as 90% of adults have a headache each year. There are 4 categories of headaches: tension headaches, vascular headaches, chemical headaches, and traction inflammatory headaches. Tension headaches are one of the most common and make up 90% of headaches. Migraines fall under vascular headaches and make up 6 - 8% of headache cases. Chemical headaches are caused by chemical exposure and traction inflammatory headaches are the rarest and indicate a more serious problem. (Werner p. 316 - 320) Causes of Tension Headaches These muscles are commonly involved in headaches Now, don't get me wrong, I take ibuprefen or whatever to take the edge off but if you get frequent or recurring headaches massage is the best thing for [...]