Achieve Success with ART

ART is used to:

• Find the specific tissues that are restricted.
• Physically work the soft tissues back to their normal texture, tension, and length, by using various hand positions and soft- tissue manipulation methods.

This strong sense of touch awareness can take a considerable amount of time and experience to develop. Active Release Techniques is successful in its treatment of soft-tissue injuries because of its logical approach to diagnosis and treatment. ART practitioners are trained to:

Locate the root cause of the problem. This often means the practitioner must perform a biomechanical analysis to determine all the kinetic chain relationships and soft-tissue structures which were affected by the injury.

Locate and remove the specific adhesions or restrictions that have formed. This requires a great deal of tactile sensitivity. Not only must the practitioner feel which areas have been affected, but they must also feel the release of the adhesions from those same areas during and after treatment. A competent ART practitioner should feel the increase in relative movement between the different layers of soft tissue at the treatment site. It takes time and experience to develop this strong sense of “touch-awareness”.

Work throughout the entire kinetic chain. The exact location of a restriction or adhesion varies between individuals. This may mean that the practitioner must treat a larger kinetic chain in order to achieve optimum recovery.

Consider the body to be one complete, dynamic, and functional unit. ART practitioners do not restrict their attention and treatment protocols to just the area of complaint. Areas requiring treatment vary between individuals, even when the patients are diagnosed as having the same condition.

Follow-up Exercises are Critical

Exercise is an essential part of any treatment regime, as exercises develop strength, power, and flexibility and also help to prevent the recurrence of the injury.

Abnormal motion patterns that developed as a compensation mechanism tend to remain even after the initial removal of restrictions. Exercise is essential if you plan to retrain these muscles to develop “normal” motion patterns, and for complete tissue remodeling after an injury.