In order to understand what happens when our muscles are manipulated (ie massaged, or worked with any number of other ‘soft tissue' techniques) and why this treatment can have such a powerful effect, we really need to understand how our muscles work, then how they go wrong.
In response to neural (nerve) stimulation from the brain (conscious action) or from the spine (reflex action), muscle fibres react by contracting or relaxing. So we either conciously tell our muscles what to do, such as bend our arm, or they do it on their own, such as holding our head up.
Muscles have a consistent degree of ‘tone’ that is maintained by a normally functioning body. Tone is a degree of contraction that is healthy and enables us to maintain posture.
The body will maintain this degree of tone throughout your life and one could describe it as part of the homeostatic (self regulating) mechanisms that keep all body functions within certain parameters, i.e. levels of acidity, temperature etc.
When the body deviates from these narrow parameters, feedback mechanisms exist to inform the body of the imbalance, it (the body) then takes measures to address the situation, so, if it gets too hot, it will sweat so that evaporation reduces temperature. This is a homeostatic mechanism.
The body has an internal blueprint of what is normal and natural for its perfect function and health. This is vital knowledge because its what we therapists depend on when treating someone with the aim of healing.