Personal Training
Balance Health and Fitness offers a wide selection of independent trainers, each with their own unique training style and fitness background. Each trainer will provide you with the appropriate fitness program based on both your goals and your body’s needs.
Massage
Massage Therapy helps you relax,repair, re-align and rejuvenate. There are many positive benefits to receiving massage therapy on an on-going basis. Balance Health and Fitness’s experienced therapists provide exceptional care and will design an effective customized massage treatment to address your individual needs.
Active Release Technique (A.R.T.)
ART is a patented, state of the art soft tissue system/movement based massage technique that treats problems with muscles, tendons, ligaments, fascia and nerves. Headaches, back pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, shin splints, shoulder pain, sciatica, plantar fascistic, knee problems, and tennis elbow are just a few of the many conditions that can be resolved quickly and permanently with ART. These conditions all have one important thing in common: they are often a result of overused muscles.
How do overuse conditions occur?
Over-used muscles (and other soft tissues) change in three important ways:
- acute conditions (pulls, tears, collisions, etc),
- accumulation of small tears (micro-trauma)
- not getting enough oxygen (hypoxia).
Each of these factors can cause your body to produce tough, dense scar tissue in the affected area. This scar tissue binds up and ties down tissues that need to move freely. As scar tissue builds up, muscles become shorter and weaker, tension on tendons causes tendinitis, and nerves can become trapped. This can cause reduced range of motion, loss of strength, and pain. If a nerve is trapped you may also feel tingling, numbness, and weakness.
What is an ART treatment like?
Every ART session is actually a combination of examination and treatment. The ART provider uses his or her hands to evaluate the texture, tightness and movement of muscles, fascia, tendons, ligaments and nerves. Abnormal tissues are treated by combining precisely directed tension with very specific patient movements.
These treatment protocols – over 500 specific moves – are unique to ART. They allow providers to identify and correct the specific problems that are affecting each individual patient. ART is not a cookie-cutter approach.
Active Isolated Stretching (A.I.S.)
The Mattes Method is a scientific stretching method developed by Aaron L. Mattes. It is a manual technique that combines a series of short, controlled stretches with intervals of relaxation, which overrides your muscles tendency to contract when stretched tight. If you suffer from neck, back, shoulder, hip or knee pain or stiffness, AIS is a safe solution that offers tremendous relief quickly. When the body starts moving and working properly, pain symptoms often go away. In addition to learning how to stretch for a life-time of physical health, AIS benefits you with increased circulation, reduced risk of injury, improved posture, greater muscle strength, faster healing times, relaxed muscles and increased muscle potential. AIS has been used by thousands of professional and amateur athletes to increase flexibility and performance while reducing the risk of injury.
Many active people truly understand the health benefits of having a flexible body. Human movement is especially enjoyable and rewarding when the body is flexible and capable of free and easy mobility without restriction. Those who wish to restore ease of movement, relaxation, and improved activity would be wise to include stretching techniques in their daily schedules.
Work or exercise that repeatedly overuses the same muscles day after day confines joints within a restricted range of motion and tends to reduce flexibility. Accident or injury may also limit flexibility and range of motion. In spite of our best attempts to avoid the inevitable aging process, older people generally succumb to a constricted, stiff posture due to loss of flexibility. Trauma, overuse and age are the most common causes of muscle tightness resulting in stiff, rigid postures.
Fortunately, individuals can maintain a healthier, pain-free state and enjoy a better quality of lifestyle through restoring flexibility through proper stretching. Stretching can also improve a variety of chronic health ailments, including many conditions that are considered untreatable except by surgery.
