(Note: I bumped up my original question for this follow-up question).
Okay…my last question gave me a pretty clear idea of the differeces between ART, Rolfing and DTM.
Thanks, guys!
Follow-up question:
It seems like anytime you read about ART on the Boards, it is related to POST-injury/rehabilitation.
Is the ART practitioner good for things like recognizing imbalances prior to injury; helping the person correct those deficiences and/or imbalaces; and in doing so, head-off a lot of potential injury?
Bodywork can be used like you’re thinking about it. ART hasn’t impressed me so far by what I’ve read about it and what I’ve gathered talking to the people who do it.
My issue with ART (I’m a massage therapist going back to school for physical therapy) is that they will train personal trainers to do it and they don’t have the backround (most of the time, I’m sure there’s an exception somewhere) to be doing this sort of work. It’s basically just deep friction to your muscle attachments to help realse or realx it.
Rolfing is structural integration and in theory most everyone would benifit from it. No one has perfect posture. Rolfing can be pretty hardcore too. In it’s strict form, it’s a series of 10 sessions that follow the same progression on everyone. There are different schools of Rolfing now and some people use it more as a technique, like deep tissue or myofascial work. The strict Rolfing also has to do with a somato-emotional release and some kind of hippie stuff like that.
Deep Tissue can be used at all point of your training if you think you need it. Except if you’re going to be in some kind of a race or event, you don’t want to have it done too close to the day because you can be pretty sore for a day or 2 afterwards.
So anyway, bodywork and massage is great to add as a part of your training. It helps with the recovery. If you are going to look into ART, I’d be especially picky about the person doing it and look for more of a PT, ATC or very good LMT.
You could totally use this as prevention for injuries. Depending on you ART pratitioner they can diagnose your imbalances. I chiro can diagnose, I believe PT’s can assess depending on their states regulations and anyone else can’t technically diagnose anything accordiong to lisence.
I’m sorry if I keep going on about stuff like that, there’s just so many people who do things way beyond their education. Your idea for a chiro to do it is great, they do alot of stuff like that. Like I said before, anything in the way of massage or bodywork is great and I feel it’s most effective if you use it for prevention and maintainence as well as rehab. You might want to see if you can find an Athletic Trainer that does it too.
I hope this helps. Good luck with everything.