@Mods Any chance Dr. Rusin has a handle I can tag?
RE: Soft Tissue Work/Myofafascial-Release
There are a number of methods that can be used for this which go above and beyond using your hands, but I can’t help but notice a lack of information regarding how effective they are.
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The Graston Technique always looks good, and I want to believe that bruising up your injured area this badly has science/data to support the claims it makes… but it seems these claims are based on either bad studies (with a sample size of 17 subjects and varying techniques - which weren’t recorded) or anecdotal claims.
It makes me suspicious when any company makes bold claims the way Graston™ does, but then they also trademark their methods and data too. -
Cupping is another one of these techniques. You’ll see videos of athletes with symmetrical octopus circles on their bodies, and because they are their sports’ elites, it makes you want to trust that it works… but it begs the question of “why?”.
If you click the hyperlink in this bullet-point, you’ll find a meta-analysis that basically says “There is growing evidence that cupping works, but we don’t know why… here’s some theories though”.
Where this applies to this article… Soft tissue work/myofacial release is known to help with soreness and short-term flexibility (which this article points to as well), but does it help with actual injury recovery? The above methods have very strong claims to working, but little non-anecdotal evidence to show for it; I’m interested to know if there is any more evidence to these claims that is perhaps behind a paywall.
If Dr. John Rusin is able to comment, that would be awesome; if anyone else wishes to comment - please do (particularly if you are Graston-Certified).
Also going to tag @Dr_Grove_Higgins as he is our resident Pain & Movement Specialist
Great article, by the way!