A piece on Rolfing from NPR.

Slouching over a computer and schlepping around kids can tighten and shorten your muscles, and with them, the fascia cinches down, like one of those vacuum-sealed beef jerky bags. Rolfers, like Brynelson, believe stretching out the fascia — getting it to be more soft and pliable — can improve posture and strength, and over time, reduce aches and pain.

When a client is being worked on the Structural Integrator is engaged in an active manipulation of the various layers of fascia, attempting to create fluidity and space between the layers from superficial to deep and to release the imbalanced pulls that shear the tissue up or down, left or right.  The job is done when we feel like we are pushing against a thousand silk handkerchiefs sliding under our hands.

Continue reading Rolfing Back In Vogue, But With Shaky Evidence

Another article in the UK based Independent.  If only there were competent PR people representing our field to clear up the nonsensical words written about our field:

“Could Rolfing be one Madonna endorsement away from becoming the next Pilates?” asked The New York Times in an article in October.

I’ve never heard that we were controversial until now but apparently Rolfing is boiled down to be the black sheep sibling of chiropractic:

While some studies claiming the efficacy of acupuncture have been published in recent years, Rolfing still remains a bit of a mystery, alongside its sister-in-controversy, chiropractic therapy. Chiropractic, another treatment popularized in the US, involves spinal manipulation to cure or aid a number of health ailments.

It is official – good journalism is dead.

A mention on Rolfing from the Coloradoan.

Rolfing’s premise is that trauma to the body and the everyday effects of gravity cause connective tissues to shift out of place, resulting in aches and pains. Practitioners stretch and apply pressure to the connective tissue to restore alignment in the body.

Continue reading Deep-massage technique Rolfing makes a return

From Intent.com:

This is a very different perspective for a very common problem. It also explains why conventional protocols fail to provide pain relief so often.

Researchers from Duke University show that back pain is usually caused by a person’s immunity attacking the disc in the same way that it attacks invading germs, not by a broken disc pressing on a nerve. They found that people with back pain associated with damaged discs have high levels of Interleukin-17, produced by your immune lymphocytes and known to cause asthma, rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune diseases.

Continue reading Why Back Surgery Fails So Often