Visceral Manipulation…
A gentle release of the connective tissue associated with the organs to help with the overall health of the Body.
“Learning Visceral Manipulation transformed my practice. Suddenly all those sessions of spending ages working on muscle tissue trying to get it to release can happen really quickly when you get to the real source of the problem.”
— Peter Dugmore
The Muscle Organ Relationship…
Whether we are Physiotherapists, Chiropractors, Osteopaths, Masseuses we are trained to treat the mechanical aspects of the body and often the visceral (organs) components are overlooked. The problem with this approach is that every single organ in the body is associated with one or more muscle groups through connective tissue called fascia. When an organ is under increased load the connective tissue can become tight and dysfunctional leading to changes in resting tension (posture) or neurological recruitment patterns (muscle contraction).
What does this do to my Pain?
The net result is that this can change the resting posture of our body or the movement patterns for normal activities such as walking, running, and exercising such as pilates, yoga, and gym exercises. It then doesn’t matter how diligent you are with your exercises or how often you see your therapist if the underlying dysfunction is not corrected you will spend a life time trying to maintain that tight hip flexor or lower back pain without ever getting complete resolution.
What actually happens?
Visceral Manipulation or Release is actually a very gentle, calming and relaxing treatment. I often feel that the minute you mention needing to release an organ to someone they instantly become a little fearful that its going to hurt or cause damage as we all know how vital our organs are. Rather than going in and massaging the organ or anything like that we are using the surrounding connective tissue in order to take the strain off the organ and enable it to relax. Alternatively we might want to very gently assist the organ to do its function such as helping the liver and kidneys to drain.