Grand Valley Muscular Therapy

Who Can Benefit & Why

  • Individuals with chronic muscular pain
  • Individuals who are concerned about their posture
  • Those looking to improve their athletic or career performance
  • Neck pain
  • Back pain
  • Extremity pain
  • Elimination or significant decrease in levels of pain
  • Increased energy levels Improved postural efficiency/appearance
  • Improved athletic performance
  • Relieves ischemia (improved circulation in muscle)
  • Deactivates painful trigger points
  • Relieves nerve compression and entrapment
  • Relieves postural imbalance and distortion

What We Do

Click any of our services below to go directly to the description:

Rolf Connective Tissue Manipulation
Deep Tissue Massage
Myofascial Release
Neuromuscular Therapy
Sports Massage
Trigger Point Therapy
Visceral Manipulation
Rolf Movement Integration

Rolf Connective Tissue Manipulation

Rolf structural integration is named after Dr. Ida P. Rolf. She began her inquiry more than fifty years ago, devoting her energy to creating a holistic system of soft tissue manipulation and movement education that organized the whole body in gravity; she eventually named this system structural integration. She discovered that she could achieve remarkable changes in posture and structure by manipulating the body's myofascial system.

Rolf structural integration has an unequaled and unprecedented ability to dramatically alter a person's posture and structure. Professional athletes, dancers, children, business people, and people from all walks of life have benefited from the Rolf method. People seek Rolf method as a way to ease pain and chronic stress, and improve performance in their professional and daily activities. It's estimated that more than 1 million people have received Rolf work.

Research has demonstrated that the Rolf method of structural integration creates a more efficient use of the muscles, allows the body to conserve energy, and creates more economical and refined patterns of movement. Research also shows that Rolf method significantly reduces chronic stress and changes in the body structure. For example, a study has shown that the Rolf method significantly reduced the spinal curvature of subjects with lordosis (sway back); it also indicated that the Rolf method enhances neurological functioning. More findings from recent research will be available here soon.

>>Back to top of page

Deep Tissue Massage

Deep tissue massage is more often used to release chronic muscle tension through slower strokes and more direct pressure or friction applied across the grain of the muscles, to affect deeper muscle layers of the body. Whether your physical problem arises from injury or an accumulation of stress, massage helps ease the discomfort. At the same time, it facilitates new strength and flexibility, allowing you to realize a more effective way of being.

Myofascial Release

Myofascial release loosens adhesions that exist in the fascia of the musculoskeletal system aiding in the freer movement of individual muscles without binding restrictions.

>>Back to top of page

Neuromuscular Therapy

Neuromuscular therapy is concerned with providing relief from soft tissue pain and dysfunction. The focus is to find the origin of the pain and address it. NMT renews structural homeostasis by restoring normal physiological functioning among muscles, nerves, and the musculoskeletal system. NMT is very effective for breaking the chronic pain cycle.

>>Back to top of page

Sports Massage

Sports Massage combines classic and specific techniques designed to provide therapeutic impact for the unique physical and biomechanical needs of athletes, artist, musician, actors and anyone who uses their body in a particular way to conduct their activities or livelihoods.

Grounded in classical Swedish approaches, sports massage incorporates techniques of: compression, trigger point therapy, cross fiber friction, hydrotherapy and cryotherapy. It deals with special needs for athletes, and others, during pre-event, post-event and training. A great advantage for using this type of work is its ability to help prevent chronic injury from developing.

>>Back to top of page

Trigger Point Therapy

Trigger point therapy is a method of digital compression upon the specific points within the soft tissues. Often times these "trigger points" are the source of referred pain to another location of the body. Release of trigger points can facilitate increased range of motion and increased circulation leading to relief of pain in both acute and chronic conditions.

>>Back to top of page

Visceral Manipulation

Visceral manipulation enhances the normal mobility and tissue motion of the organs of the visceral system. Hypertonicity, displacement, and adhesions can all cause organs to work against each other, creating chronic irritation and fixed, abnormal points of tension. The visceral organs are dependent on their ability to move freely in the visceral cavity to then work correctly and efficiently. When they are pulled out of their effective positions, they cease to function properly. By freeing each organ to work compatibly with the others, a therapist can potentially alter and improve the structure and functioning of the entire body.

>>Back to top of page

Rolf Movement Integration

Rolf Movement Integration is a system of movement education based on the concepts developed by Dr. Rolf, Ph.D., the creator of the Rolf method process.
Rolf Movement focuses on developing balance and support for action in the gravitational field, on learning to move harmoniously with gravity, and on evoking an open and responsive body in which inner strength and centered-ness can be chosen instead of outer tension and armoring. The results are increased grace, ease, and efficiency of movement; a more powerful sense of self; and often the relief of physical stress caused by gravity-resistant movement patterns.

In a series of Rolf Movement sessions, client and teacher come together to understand the client’s present movement patterns. They explore the possibilities for free, more balanced movement in breathing, walking, standing, sitting and whatever special or daily activities the person in involved in, such as running, desk work, housework, yoga, carpentry and the like. They attend to each part of the body, releasing specific holding patterns, and then integrating that part, through movement, with gentle, simple series of centering movements that can be taken into everyday life to ease pain and stress and to enhance all activities from the work place to the playing field.

Rolf Movement can be undertaken by itself or in conjunction with Rolf method sessions. Rolf Movement Integration and Rolf method combined enhance each other; Rolf method frees and integrates the body’s structure so the client has more movement options, and Rolf Movement teaches the client how to use these possibilities in everyday life.

>>Back to top of page