The Connected Body

You might have heard the children’s rhyme “The Skeleton Dance,” also sometimes known as “Dem Bones.”

The foot bone's connected to the leg bone.

The leg bone's connected to the knee bone.

The knee bone's connected to the thigh bone.

The technical names of the bones may not be accurate, but the principle it teaches applies in massage therapy. We may not be treating bones specifically, but our bodies are made up of systems that interconnect and affect each other. The connection extends beyond our bones to our muscles, tendons, nerves, and organs. When one part of our body isn’t functioning properly, other areas, particularly adjacent areas, must compensate.

If you injure your knee, you may change your stride in small ways to keep it from hurting. Over time, that will pull your hip out of alignment, and it will begin to hurt. Or perhaps, instead, your calf muscle will feel the strain. Many people don’t realize just how much pain in one area of the body affects the surrounding parts. The same goes for tension that is not related to injury or illness. Tension in your neck and shoulders influences posture, and poor posture can put stress on a whole range of areas.

As licensed massage therapists, we’ve been trained to assess the ways in which various body parts are affecting each other. Our extensive education and experience give us insight into how your problem area may be affecting the rest of your body, whether you’ve realized it or not.

When clients ask us to focus on pain they are having in their hand, our therapist knows it is tied not only to the hand but also the forearm, elbow, shoulder, and maybe even neck. Focusing massage on all these areas is an important part of relieving pain in the hand. Clients are often surprised at what a difference looking at the body as a connected system makes in the treatment we offer.

If you are experiencing pain in one particular part of your body and seek massage treatment, talk to your massage therapist about when you first noticed the pain and things that may have led up to it. This may help the therapist determine what might be connected and where else they should focus to help relieve your pain.