I provide an effective, relaxed, no-nonsense therapeutic approach to a wide variety of chronic or acute physical complaints that result from repetitive activities (RSI), sports activities, traumatic injuries, poor posture, faulty body usage and daily stress.
To do so, I make use of techniques such as Myoskeletal, Neuromuscular and Myofascial Therapy, Muscle Energy Techniques and Somatic Education; these focus on the release of tight muscles, bound connective tissues and fixated joints to alleviate pain, restore function and improve posture and well-being.
Client education and self-help coaching is strongly emphasised to promote lasting results.
The most common conditions I work with are:
Back, hips, shoulders and neck pain
Recurring or frequent headaches
Painful or reduced range of movement
Pain or odd sensations in the arms, hands, legs and feet
Abdominal and chest pain that persists following negative findings from medical investigations
Symptoms that did not respond to other types of treatments: this is simply because too few therapies focus on fascia, an extremely important connective tissue very closely involved with the proper functioning of the muscular system, and a major potential troublemaker.
The muscle - fascia - joint - trigger point relationship:
Muscles are made of muscle fibers (the active, working component) and fascia (several distinct layers of it) whose role is to shape muscle fibers into what we know as a muscle, and the vehicle for the kinetic force produced by said fibers to move the bones to which they attach via their tendinous extensions.
Fascia is also the tissue that, when healthy, allows muscles to freely glide along one another while coordinating how various individual structures work together efficiently. When subjected to abnormal levels of strains, fascia tends to become constricted and sticky which brings on a variety of undesirable changes in the way it is able to perform its function. This is important as fascia is extremely abundant, and a large part of what a body is made of.
Basically, fascia contains (it holds the muscle together and keeps it in the correct place), separates (it separates the muscles so that they can work independently of each other), enables movement (it provides a lubricated surface so that muscles can glide smoothly against each other) and connects most body structures to one another via an extremely intricate web that reaches in all directions from deep to superficial. Last but not least, new research seems to indicate that fascia is the conducting tissue Acupuncture and Shiatsu therapists call meridians.
Joints are the place where bones meet and articulate with one another. Muscle and fascia imbalances can easily pull any joint out of its neutral alignment and start a chain reaction where pain receptors within the joint get overstimulated thus causing the nervous system to respond by tightening the muscles controlling that joint. This, in turn, causes the pain receptors within the joint to get more stimulated starting a vicious cycle of sensory-motor excitation.
A typical visit goes as follows:
After listening to the reason that brought you in and taking a history of your complaint, an orthopaedic and postural assessment is performed to determine what moves properly and what does not, and whether how you hold yourself might contribute to your problem.
The work then focuses on easing your immediate symptoms while improving your body’s overall structural/functional balance as it is my experience that, in many cases, it is more useful to focus on re-establishing proper function of these tissues than to focus on working only where the pain is felt as, all too often, symptoms are just the expression of something else that is not working properly.
Two or three sessions are usually enough to either provide relief of your symptoms or confirm whether or not this is the right approach to your problem.
In the event I am unavailable, I recommend to contact Janco Volk (Rolfer) at 06 24 65 62 60 or my colleagues at Fysiotherapie “De Nieuwe Keizers” 020 6231833