Our Friend the Ice Cube... Some Powerful Medicine! It comes up almost every day in my massage practice. A client tells me they took a spill on their bike and hurt their elbow, shoulder, or knee. Maybe they twisted an ankle while running, or hyperextended a finger trying to catch a baseball. Whatever the injury, my question is usually the same: “Did you put ice on it?” When the body experiences an injury, inflammation is a common part of its natural response. For many everyday

One of the things I like to do for my massage clients is to share information that is of practical benefit to each of you. This may be a stretching exercise, a self massage technique, or a handy self-care activity that is useful for an athlete's "bag of tricks." Such things can help make post-activity recovery quicker, warm-up more effective, and help prevent injury. Today's self-maintenance activity is the epsom salts bath. This is one of my favorite self-maintenance activit

An introduction to Active Isolated Stretching, which is based on the principle of reciprocal inhibition. This is when the contraction of one muscle or group of muscles (the antagonist) brings about the release of the opposing muscle or group of muscles( the antagonist) with each contraction completed. The resulting release occurs for approximately 2 seconds with each movement. The movements are repeated 10 times, which brings about 10 small releases. Completing 10 repetitions

This is the first of three gentle exercises which are done to essentially calm down the nervous system and reduce muscular tension. This is achieved by repeatedly taking the body through a particular combination of specific movements done together in a coordinated fashion. The movements are repeated 10 times at least once a day. Performed on a daily basis, these will prove to be extremely helpful for reducing the over-stimulation of the nervous system which often leads to chr