The Functional Muscle Manipulation can look like deep tissue, but it works very differently — instead of forcing tight muscles to soften, it works with the autonomic nervous system to convince it that it is safe to release.
Difference between the Functional Muscle Manipulation and Deep Tissue?
If you compare photos, the Functional Muscle Manipulation looks like Deep Tissue. There is big difference in the implementation, though. Deep Tissue treats the body as a material to soften up. The FMM understands that the muscles respond to our internal state. We contract when we feel threatened. We release, to a degree, when we feel safe and comfortable.
Often, we stiffen up when our Autonomic Nervous Systems perceives a threat, even if we don't acknowledge the feeling. The FMM addresses that deeper pattern of defensive contraction instead of just trying to force your muscles to soften up. That is the functional part in the Functional Muscle Manipulation. The FMM increases your physical awareness of those autonomic reactions and eventually, you become able to release that contraction on our own. And that can have results that last for years.
Deep Tissue vs the Functional Muscle Manipulation
"Knots." Deep tissue treats "knots" as scar tissue or hardened muscle, caused by physical trauma and "wear and tear." The Functional Muscle Manipulation treats them as muscle spasms — well-functioning muscles commanded by the sympathetic nervous system to stay contracted, a kind of "armoring."
The method. Deep tissue tries to "break" knots or soften the hardened "material" by force. The FMM negotiates with the sympathetic nervous system to release the muscles.
Pressure and pain. With deep tissue, depending on the amount of pressure, it either hurts a lot or doesn't go deep enough. With the FMM, pressure is constantly adjusting — a dialog with the body, which opens up and allows much deeper work, with no pain.
The patient's experience. In deep tissue, the patient often struggles to survive the intrusion and involuntarily fights back. In the FMM, the patient becomes physically aware of, and consciously releases, those contracted muscles.
The results. Deep tissue tends to give poor results and a dependency on long-term treatment — "never enough." With the FMM, chronic problems from involuntary contraction and nerve irritation (headaches, migraines, sciatica, tennis elbow, and so on) are solved completely. Full therapy: lasting results.
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