What Is Soft Tissue Mobilization? Techniques for At-Home Recovery
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Welcome to Part II of the Alleviate Method deep-dive! Part I was about load management. This post is about soft tissue mobilization - an effective physical therapy treatment method for soft tissue injuries.
If you’ve been to a physical therapist for soft tissue injuries like Plantar Fasciitis and Tennis Elbow, most likely, you’ve had the PT work directly on your aggravated tissue to relieve pain, release tension, and promote healing. Soft tissue mobilization is the technical term for manual therapy that PTs, chiropractors, athletic trainers, and other clinicians use to treat the root causes of these injuries.
Soft tissue mobilization is one of the three pillars of the gold standard of physical therapy treatment for soft tissue injuries. This treatment has three key benefits:
It resolves the root cause of your pain: chronic pain from many soft tissue injuries like Plantar Fasciitis and Runner’s Knee comes from tiny tears and scar tissue that form on the aggravated tissue. Soft tissue mobilization reduces pain by helping replace this painful, weak tissue with healthy, stronger tissue.
It shortens your recovery time: compared to passive treatment methods like rest, icing, or NSAIDs, a treatment plan that includes soft tissue mobilization results in shorter recovery time.
It makes your recovery stick: because soft tissue mobilization resolves the root cause of your pain, the relief sticks. Soft tissue injuries have a high recurrence rate without the correct, consistent treatment, so this is key.
How does soft tissue mobilization work to quickly reduce pain and keep it away for the long term? There are several mechanisms of action.
Break up adhesions and scar tissue
Relieve pain by creating sensations that aren’t pain
Release tension and tightness
Help the tissue lay down properly
Reduce fluid accumulation and swelling
Improve blood flow and promote healing
While some PTs still use their hands for manual therapy, many PTs have moved to using purpose-built stainless steel tools. We call this method Instrument-Assisted Soft Tissue Mobilization (IASTM) or Graston Technique (after its inventor, David Graston). The Graston tools have the:
strength needed for effective manual tissue work;
form factor designed to precisely target even a small, deep-set tissue;
just enough friction for pinpoint targeting and creating non-pain sensations;
and tactile feedback that PTs need to find the problematic areas and apply deliberate pressure exactly where it’s needed.
If you want to give yourself a massage that’s as effective as IASTM, you’ll want a massage tool that has these four features. A purpose-built massage tool, like our Arch Massager, makes your soft tissue work much more intuitive and effective than using a general-purpose massager or your hand.
Is Instrument-Assisted Soft Tissue Mobilization different from the kind of massage you get from other tools and techniques? Absolutely!
The biggest difference is the ability of IASTM to precisely target and work on the problematic tissue. Foam rollers, massage guns, or even lacrosse balls can be decent at massaging a broad area for general recovery, but they are no match for IASTM when it comes to treating specific soft tissue injuries. Massage guns don't give you the control you need; foam rollers and lacrosse balls lack stability and precision.
To break up scar tissue and promote the growth of healthier, stronger tissue in specific areas affected by an injury like Plantar Fasciitis, PTTD, or Tennis Elbow, IASTM is a far superior method.
PTs use specific IASTM moves to create different therapeutic effects. You can replicate these moves, using Alleviate IASTM massage tools.
Press: find the hot spot, press down on it, and hold. Many Allevaite users describe this move as “like an acupressure.”
Glide: massage along the hot spot, going in one direction.
Rotate: press down on the hot spot, then rotate against the massager, while pressing down.
Drag: combination of press and glide. Press down on the hot spot, then drag in one direction. Lift, press down on the hot spot again, and repeat.
Light & quick stroke: a specific move to wake up the VMO muscle before activities, for people with Runner’s Knee.
It’s best to watch tutorial videos to get a sense of how to use the PT techniques for specific conditions. All of our massage tools come with tutorial videos to make it intuitive and effective. Here are two examples:
In some cases (like Plantar Fasciitis), it’s as simple as massaging where it hurts the most. In other cases, it helps to first find the specific tissue that’s been aggravated by your condition.
For example, if you have Tennis Elbow, you may feel a somewhat generalized pain in your forearm, radiating from a vague area near your elbow. That can make it hard to know where to massage.
To find the ECRB tendon (that’s the tendon that needs work), fold your affected arm in front of you in a V shape, and wiggle your middle finger. You'll see a flickering spot on the outside of your forearm near your elbow. That's the ECRB tendon, and that's where you want to massage.
Whether done by a PT or yourself at home, Soft Tissue Mobilization is most effective when done on bare skin. Socks and clothing create too much friction, make it difficult for you to feel the tissue, and reduce the efficacy overall.
To maximize the benefit of soft tissue mobilization work, PTs use massage emollients. The smooth glide they create lets PTs apply the right amount of pressure in the right spot, with ease.
At home, use the Recovery Balm (our professional massage emollient with Arnica extracts). Swipe the Balm on the skin right before your massage, and the moisturizing emollient creates the same smooth glide free of annoying catches and slips. It’s the easiest way to apply deliberate pressure on the exact tissue that needs it.
If you’re sitting for a foot massage, place the Arch Massager close to the edge of your chair, not a foot away in front of you. This placement helps you use your body weight to press into the plantar fascia, the problematic tissue at the bottom of your foot. Intentionally leaning your upper body into the massager also helps you use your body weight, instead of straining your leg or foot muscles for the massage.
With the Forearm Massager (included in the Tennis Elbow System), once you deploy it at the edge of a desk, pull up your chair and sit as close as you can to the massager. Here, too, consciously lean your upper body into your affected forearm, as you press into the massager.
Most people massage far too fast. Try slowing down. Going slow and steady helps you find the hot spots that need work, and give these hot spots enough therapeutic force and friction to transform the tissue.
One exception is when you’re using the Massage Blade to activate the VMO for Runner’s Knee. When you’re waking up the VMO before activities, it’s best to use quick, light strokes, rather than slow, powerful strokes.
(Here's more about ways to use our knee massager.)
How much pressure should you apply to the tissue? With soft tissue mobilization, you’re looking for that “good hurt.” Transforming an aggravated muscle or tendon with messy scar tissue takes a fair amount of force (and consistent work!). So, a little bit of pain and discomfort are good.
How much pressure you need depends on what effect you’re trying to create, too.
Runner’s Knee massage is a good example. When you’re activating your VMO before activities, your goal is to give the switched-off muscle a stimulus to engage it. This corrects the imbalance in the muscle output, and helps place your kneecap in the correct position, thus preventing pain and further damage.
For this purpose, you just need a very light touch - you are just creating a sensation to “wake up” the muscle, not trying to induce physical change in the tissue.
On the other hand, when you’re massaging the ITB after activities to release tension, reduce adhesions, and relieve pain, you’d use more force. Even though it’s for the same condition (Runner’s Knee), your purpose is now different: you’re working to change the problematic tissue, so you need to apply a bit more pressure.
As you massage, your Alleviate massager will give you tactile feedback about what’s underneath your skin, and what’s happening inside. Pay close attention to that feedback, and you’ll be surprised how easy it is to feel bumps or tightness in your muscles, tendons, and ligaments. The first time they use an Alleviate massager, many people discover knots and tight areas that they didn’t even know they had.
And those are the areas that benefit the most from soft tissue mobilization. Use the peaks on the Arch Massager, the nodules on the Forearm Massager, or the two horns on the Massage Blade (included in the Runner's Knee Essentials) to target the tissue in these hot spots.
As you continue your daily massage routine, you’ll feel from the tactile feedback that the bumps and tightness are reducing over time. With Plantar Fasciitis, for example, in addition to reduction in arch or heel pain, smoother, looser plantar fascia that you feel from the Arch Massager is another sign that your Plantar Fasciitis is healing.
Soft tissue mobilization is an effective method to treat soft tissue injuries. However, IASTM isn’t a be-all-end-all. To reduce pain now and prevent recurrences, an effective treatment plan should include two other pillars: load management and progressive strengthening.
The three pillars of treatment work together to reduce pain quickly, heal the tissue, and build defenses against flare-ups. The Alleviate Method is the at-home application of this approach, and it works: on average, users experience a 40% reduction in pain within 2 weeks. And it doesn’t stop there. By week 6, pain reduces by 60%.
Soft tissue mobilization resolves the root cause: a key pillar of PT treatment for repetitive stress injuries, soft tissue mobilization works directly on the problematic tissue to induce positive change, resolving the root cause of your pain.
More effective than general massage tools: purpose-built massage tools like the Arch Massager, Elbow Massager, and Massage Blade, give you the precision and control you need to transform the tissue - something general-purpose tools like massage guns and foam rollers can't do.
Combine with load management and progressive strengthening for best results: PTs incorporate load management (taping or brace) and progressive strengthening (PT exercises) to relieve pain, heal the tissue, and prevent flare-ups. With our tools and methodology, you can replicate this effective approach at home.
Alleviate was founded by a patient-clinician duo to bring the effective chronic pain treatment from physical therapy offices to everyone's home. With our all-in-one Systems for Plantar Fasciitis, PTTD, and Tennis Elbow, you can use the Alleviate Method to treat your pain, without the hassle of traditional physical therapy.
All of our Systems include a brace for load management, a massager for soft-tissue mobilization, and a Guided Recovery Program for PT guidance and progressive strengthening.
Luke Ferdinands, Physical Therapist & Co-Founder
A New Zealand-trained physical therapist with over 20 years of experience, Luke developed the Alleviate Method to bring the gold standard of physical therapy care to everyone's home. Luke leads the development of physical tools and digital physical therapy content, focusing on driving clinical outcomes for people with chronic musculoskeletal pain conditions like Tennis Elbow, Plantar Fasciitis, Runner's Knee, and more.
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