Massage vs bodywork

 

 

What is the difference between bodywork and massage, and which one do I need? Over the years we have become conditioned to think we need a deep, hard massage to fix our issues when in reality that is not true.  If it was how many of you would be free of your aches and pains by now? Harder is not better and no pain no gain is outdated. What if you knew that every time you had a massage that made you wince you actually set yourself back from achieving the results you wanted? Why? Because you went past your healing threshold. The nervous system is already overloaded and stressed. Now you add more stress in the form of forceful pressure to try and demand the muscles give under load. In therapeutic bodywork, the body often receives this pressure as a threat and responds by locking down even more. You may feel good for an hour afterward, but the same feedback loop remains, allowing pain and dysfunction to continue.

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Bodywork uses a variety of advanced techniques to address the body from multiple angles. Therapeutic bodywork does not simply focus on loosening a muscle or using massage techniques alone. At Roots of Vitality, therapeutic bodywork follows a systems-based approach examining where pain and dysfunction exist, which systems are involved, why they are affected, and how to restore balance. When the body is out of balance, symptoms arise as signals communicating that something is wrong.

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