Soft Tissue Therapy – Where is the Science?
Some people want to dismiss Soft Tissue Therapy because they say there is no scientific evidence to prove that it works, but this is a crazy argument. It may be impossible to do a double-blind trial on a physical therapy because people undoubtedly know if they are getting real treatment or not, but it is completely wrong to assume that it does not work only because it cannot be tested in the conventional way. Instead you have to look at the anecdotal evidence and to do this you have to consider every human being that has ever lived on this planet!
Any human being who has an ache or pain will instinctively give it a rub (self-massage). In fact, try not rubbing it! It is impossible not to. Similarly, if you feel stiff you will naturally and instinctively stretch the area. Again it is impossible not to! If you have an injury you know instinctively that you have to rest the area for a while and then slowly build yourself back up to normal activity. These self-help remedies are all part of the body’s natural ability to heal itself. They pre-date modern science by tens of thousands of years and we all know they work. Massage, stretching and rehabilitation advice are the main cornerstones of Soft Tissue Therapy so to suggest that the therapy does not work is a complete nonsense. We all know it works because we all do it ourselves.
But the average person may only get a few injuries during a lifetime and this is not enough to develop real expertise in these natural remedies. All that Soft Tissue Therapy has done is take these natural remedies and study them, develop them and perfect them to get the best results. People with injuries go to Soft Tissue Therapists because they have the expertise to do it better than they can do it themselves, and because you can’t massage your own back!