So, being an active person of a “certain age”, I am constantly confronted with wellness solutions marketed specifically to that demographic.

Hmmm

A certain age. Let’s start with that.

Your question may well be “Bob, how do I know if I’m of “a certain age”. A couple clues;

– People start randomly addressing you as “sir” or “ma’am”

– The mail from AARP has been arriving for, say 5 years. ( those bastards starts hella early)

– They start checking your I.D. …for the senior discount.

– No one laughs anymore when you fall.

OK, wellness solutions. Like what? Like ;

– Memory aids

– Prostate supplements

– Stretch routines & machines ( includes, back, hips, knees, foot, shoulder, etc)

– Thera-guns. I’m sure they have a benefit, but I can’t help thinking of the machines back in the day that people strapped into that shook them to help with weight loss. Anyone???

– Cryotherapy. I know. I’m doing cryo right now. But you gotta believe in something…

The latest to ping on my radar is scraping.

Muscle scraping is a form of manual therapy that is said to accelerate the healing process of soft tissues. It may be used to help treat any number of soft tissue injuries, including ankle sprains or other ligament sprains, pulled muscles, plantar fasciitis, iliotibial band syndrome, Achilles tendinitis, and back spasms or other soft tissue injuries in the back. Muscle scraping can be considered a form of Gua sha, a healing technique used in traditional East Asian medicine to relieve muscle pain and tension. Gua sha uses a scraper tool to gently mobilize tissue, which is said to move chi (energy) around the body while also breaking up connective tissue and adhesions.

So, basically, you’re taking a “scraping tool” and scraping along the surface of the skin to promote healing. What kind of healing? ( OMG, it’s a “list” blog)

– Muscle scraping can increase circulation and blood flow to your soft tissue.

– When soft tissues are damaged, scar tissue can form. Scar tissue is much less flexible and elastic than normal muscle fibers or connective tissue fibers. One of the primary benefits of muscle scraping is reducing pain by breaking up scar tissues and adhesions.

– Muscle scraping is also thought to decrease pain perception through the gate theory of pain. With the gate theory of pain, the scraping motion of the muscle scraper against the skin and soft tissues acts as a counter-irritant and distracts the brain from the presenting pain that you are trying to treat. So…it makes you forget about the pain you’re having by causing you a different pain. Like slamming your hand in your car door to make you forget about your plantar fasciitis. Or something like that.

In addition, studies suggest that muscle scraping promotes the production of anti-inflammatory compounds.

Some studies have also found that muscle scraping treatments can improve exercise performance, including weightlifting strength and perceived exertion.

According to other studies, muscle scraping can also be helpful in cases of chronic or long-standing injuries that never healed. Eventually, the body accepts scar tissue as healthy tissue and ignores the need to further heal or repair the area. Muscle scraping can cause just enough soft tissue perturbations ( read “pain”) that the body is alerted to damage and gets kick-started back into healing the prior injury.

A word about “studies”. I use the word a lot. But there are studies and there are studies. There are studies that adhere to strict scientific protocols, involve a statistically significant number of subjects and are, by design, impartial. There are other studies, which involve marketing professionals, 12 employees and a, let’s call it a “sales-driven objective”. Just saying.

So, in summary, by increasing circulation, decreasing inflammation, and optimizing tissue health, muscle scraping primes the body to repair and recover faster.

So, you’re probably saying “so can I try this with a butter knife and some baby oil?”. According to the paid professionals, this would be a mistake. There are scraping tools, which might look a lot like a butter knife, or a shoe horn, but they are not. They are the tools of the trade, specifically designed to optimize the scraping experience. There have been studies… I’ve seen them range in price from $50, to a starter kit for just $324.

Just.

Ok, enough of my babble. The only way to know is to try. I’m already committed to my stretching, foam rolling and cryo routine, at least until I run these 2 races in back to back weeks. ( because of my crazy Irish running club compadres). But give it a shot. Let me know.

Do a study.

Talk later,

Bob