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Muscles are thousands of strands, just like our hair, and are created to expand and contract. And just like hair, these strands can easily get knotted, which means they lose their ability to expand and contract. Sometimes the body can adapt, but sometimes these knots mushroom out and interfere with entire sections of the muscle. At this point the problem can ripple into the joints. This is how conditions like low back sprain, rotator cuff impingement, plantar fascitis, etc. start. Active Release Technique (ART) combs through the scarred and knotted tissue, allowing the muscle fibers to expand and contract as normal.

For simplicity sake, the body has 2 groups of muscles: stabilizer muscles and mover muscle. The stabilizer muscles have one purpose: fire first, fire strong and hold everything in place. The mover musclers are the ones that make us walk, talk, sit, stand, etc. Over time, the stabilizer muscles tend to weaken, since we don't use them very often in everyday life. Mover muscles are always used, and tend to become dominant. This causes an imbalance in the muscle firing pattern and the joint then becomes affected.

Dr. Colleen specializes in evaluating the muscle firing patterns, finding which muscles are too dominant, and gets them calmed down. She also finds which stabilizer muscles are weak and prescribes strengthening exercises - whereby restoring the normal muscle firing pattern as well as normal function to the joint. The patient is then released and instructed on maintaining their home routine.

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