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The reviews are in and they're great! ""Alessandra is a true Telluride gem. Parking is easy, the free lot next to the lift, or bike or ski in! Less expensive than the rest of town, yet top massage expertise. Beautiful music to fit the client, personalized massage and oils, a real find. I have had massages the world over and Alessandra is one of the best. For those new to town, this is a true Yelp discovery."
Living and working in an athletically active mountain community as Telluride, I see a lot of physical injuries amongst my clients and friends. I consider myself one of the lucky ones, grateful to have not yet undergone a traumatic injury or surgery.
Low back pain can be a tricky symptom to assess; thankfully more often than not, the discomfort can be attributed to soft tissue tension and weakness, frequently traced to the deep and mysterious QL, or, quadratus lumborum. The QL is our deepest abdominal muscle, though easy to consider a back muscle due to its location and function. It is located under our superficial back muscles posteriorly, and under our superficial abdominal muscles and psoas anteriorly, where we bend at the waist.
In my last wellness article published in May, I explained a smorgasbord of foundational massage modalities offered in our culture, including Swedish, deep tissue, sports massage, and myofascial release techniques. That article can be found on my website. Herein I address additional techniques, which add variety and focus to the previous menu of bodywork modalities. Some I currently offer, others I have limited experience with.
What flavor massage would treat you best? Like a smorgasbord full of delectable treats, it can be a bit confusing for people with all of the different massage techniques advertised to select the proper bodywork provider for their particular needs. Some clients seek nothing but 60-90 minutes of utter relaxation, while most want a combination of that and therapeutic methods to help with ailments causing discomfort.
Off-season in resort towns such as ours is a time for locals to slow down, regenerate and do things we otherwise can’t find time for in our increasingly boisterous fast-paced community. This fall I never slowed down, but I did find the time to combine a bit of travel with interesting continuing education courses in bodywork modalities new to me. Colorado doesn’t require Licensed Massage Therapists to acquire education credits annually, but it’s something that I find invaluable, and pursue regularly regardless. Adding to the toolbox, stimulating the brain, and refreshing one’s practice can only be a good thing, for practitioner and client alike!
Perhaps due to extreme summer sports, long hours sitting, or the average age cohort of my clients, I have had a wave of massage clients this summer experiencing sciatica-type symptoms, which can be alarming and unbearable. Sciatica is not a condition, but a symptom of another issue; it’s the name of the pain caused by irritation of the sciatic nerve.
The psoas, a dynamic 16-inch-long involuntary hip-flexing, core muscle which connects the upper and lower body, providing structure, stabilization, and locomotion, can also contribute to healthy digestive, emotional and sexual function.
Skiing is a total body workout, and can leave one feeling tight all over, as it requires efficient, coordinated, balanced movement, employing consistent musculoskeletal strength.
The sport puts incredible stress on the joints; the tighter our muscles get from exertion, the more tension is put on tendons surrounding and attaching to joints, causing complaints of sore hips, lower back, knees, ankles, feet, even shoulders.
The rotator cuff is not a muscle. Clients often complain of pain or surgery on their rotator cuff, yet they do not know which muscle is affected. The rotator cuff is a mechanism controlling the stability and motion of the shoulder joint, made up of four distinct, independent muscles, which can be considered the shoulder’s core muscles.
The delight of a new baby! A love deep enough to sustain humanity cultivates during the first few days, weeks, and months of togetherness. Before the body has started to recover from pregnancy and childbirth, new mothers are launched into a series of novel repetitive activities that will cumulatively build up, causing predictable patterns of long-term wear and tear in musculature. It’s a busy and challenging time; just having a shower can seem miraculous with all of the new demands. It’s no surprise that self-care falls to the backburner. Through recognizing repetitive actions that leave parents with chronic pain, and how to better approach them, some discomfort can be mitigated.