Pursuing the Dream

The first time I walked into Dr. Michelle Clark’s office for an Active Release Technique (A.R.T.) session, I had my doubts. I had never heard of A.R.T. before moving to Colorado, but was told that it could help treat repetitive overuse injuries, chronic injuries, pulls, tears and all of those other things athletes, or anybody, can develop.

It was shortly after my first marathon, and my left knee was jacked up from pounding on the pavement for 2 hours and 55 minutes. Michelle diagnosed me with runner’s knee. Sounded appropriate. One of the potential causes was a tight outer quad muscle, so, with me lying on my back, she pressed down on my left quad, just above the knee, and told me to grab my left ankle. It was like a lying down quad stretch, only it felt like something was tearing in my knee. That tearing sensation was scar tissue breaking up and my muscle being reminded of how long it should actually be, and that’s what A.R.T. is all about.

A.R.T. breaks up scar tissue.

As with deep-tissue massage, A.R.T. helps break up scar tissue that forms when the exercise-induced micro-tears in our muscles don’t heal properly, and removing scar tissue is crucial to keeping the blood and oxygen flowing to the muscles. The major difference is, with A.R.T., you are actually moving and stretching your muscles to break up the scar tissue as opposed to just lying there and letting someone else break it up for you.

A.R.T. creates muscle memory.

Athletes, musicians or anybody else who does a single activity over and over has probably heard the term muscle memory. Once you repeat a task for so long, your muscles just “remember” how to perform that task. For runners, muscle memory refers mostly to your form and pace. Your body “remembers” how fast to go.

Unfortunately, if some muscles become overly tight or injured, they can shrink up and forget what their original length is. That’s what the “active” part of A.R.T. remedies. While moving, flexing and stretching your muscles to break up the scar tissue, you are also reminding your muscles how long they are supposed to be and improving your range of motion. And, the better your range-of-motion, the less prone you are to injury.

Michelle treating my good shin. If she was working on my left shin, I'd be a lot less relaxed and breaking out in cold sweats.

What an A.R.T. session is like.

I’ve always described A.R.T. sessions the same way, and recently asked Michelle if I have the gist of it. She said I did, so I’ll go with that description. I’ll tell her where it hurts or what muscles are tight. Let’s stay with the quad muscles. Apparently there are more than one, and when I came in with my runner’s knee, she spent some time feeling my left quad to find out exactly where it was tender. When she found the spot, I let her know by gritting my teeth and grunting with discomfort. As I described before, she then pressed down on my quad, near the knee, and had me do a lying down quad stretch.

By pressing down on the muscle, she is essentially kinking off part of the muscle. All I’m really stretching is what’s between her fingers and my knee. She’ll do this the whole length of the muscle, and the further away from the knee she gets, the less it hurts, because more of my muscle is able to move. That’s how A.R.T. breaks up scar tissue and re-lengthens your muscles. After she’s done, my muscles feel more limber and flexible than before I came in.

Since there is never just one thing wrong with me, Michelle gets a pretty good workout treating the various muscles that are tight. The funny thing is, my legs seem to be swapping back and forth. Before the Flying Pig, everything seemed to be going wrong in my right leg. Now, she’s working on things in my left leg. I guess I’m just lopsided.

Hopefully my imbalances will get straightened out. Regardless, I’m going to keep going to Michelle on a regular basis (once or twice a week), because without her help, I’m sure my training would be a lot more painful than it actually is.

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