neuromuscular? i hardly know her!
Welcome back, curious humans! Today we're talking about something that sounds intimidating but is actually incredibly cool: neuromuscular therapy. Specifically, the techniques I use to convince your nervous system to chill out, help your body remember what "stable" feels like, and stop that thing where one muscle does all the work while its buddies nap.
If you've been on my table, you've probably noticed I do some weird stuff. I might ask you to push against my hand while I hold your leg in a specific position. Or I'll move you into what feels like a bizarrely twisted pretzel pose and just... hold you there for 90 seconds. It's not regular massage, and it's definitely not arbitrary—there's some nerdy magic happening.
what even IS neuromuscular therapy?
Think of it this way: your muscles don't just do things on their own. They're controlled by your nervous system, which is constantly scanning your body, making decisions about what should contract, what should relax, and what should brace for impact because you're about to step off a curb wrong.
Sometimes your nervous system gets its wires crossed. Maybe you injured something years ago, or you have hypermobile joints that your brain doesn't quite trust, or you've been sitting at a desk in a tragic posture for a decade. Your nervous system compensates—it tells certain muscles to work overtime, creates protective tension, or just... forgets how things are supposed to move.
Neuromuscular therapy is about talking to that nervous system. Not by force, but by giving it new information so it can update its settings.
the techniques: PNF, positional release, and other party tricks
Here's where I get to nerd out.
PNF (Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation) sounds like something from a sci-fi novel, but it's basically a conversation between your muscles and your brain using your body's built-in reflexes. I'll have you contract a muscle against resistance (that's the "you push, I push back" thing), and then we use that contraction to coax your nervous system into releasing tension and gaining range of motion.
Why does this work? Because your nervous system has some predictable reflexes we can work with:
Reciprocal Inhibition (RI) uses the fact that when you contract a muscle, its opposite (the antagonist) automatically relaxes. It's a safety feature—your bicep and tricep can't both fire at full strength at the same time, or your arm would tear itself apart. So when you actively contract one side, the nervous system sends an inhibitory signal to the other side. We use this to help tight muscles let go without forcing them. Example: your quads are crazy beefy and your hamstring is totally out to lunch—I ask you to fire up your knee flexion, contract your hammies against my resistance, and when you do that your brain has to redirect the power supply away from your always-on-quads, and pump up hams to access length in the quads! The bonus here is that we “turn on” the muscles that aren’t doing their part to provide balance and stability—the antagonists—and wake them up to allow planes of movement rarely or never before accessed!!
Post-Isometric Relaxation (PIR) taps into a different reflex: when you contract a muscle isometrically (meaning you're pushing but not actually moving), the muscle spindles and Golgi tendon organs (sensory receptors that monitor tension) send feedback to your spinal cord. After the contraction ends, there's a brief window—about 10-30 seconds—where the nervous system temporarily decreases the muscle's tone. That's when we gently take up the slack and gain new range of motion. It's like the muscle takes a deep breath and forgets to tighten back up.
Contract-Relax-Antagonist-Contract (CRAC) is the overachiever of the bunch—it combines both reflexes. You contract the tight muscle (which triggers PIR), then relax it, and then contract the opposite muscle (triggering RI). It's a one-two punch that gives us even more release and lengthening.
The beauty of all these techniques is that we're not forcing anything. We're just leveraging your nervous system's own wiring to update what it thinks is "normal." Your brain gets new information, recalibrates, and suddenly that hip flexor that's been locked down for twenty years remembers it can actually lengthen, or that Gluteus Maximus that hasn’t worked a day in its life suddenly remembers it has a job to do.
Positional Release (also called Strain-Counterstrain) is the one that feels like we're just... hanging out in a weird position. I move you into a position of comfort—usually the opposite of where the pain or tension is—and hold you there for about 90 seconds. This allows the overloaded muscle spindles (tiny sensory receptors in your muscles) to calm down and reset. When we slowly return to neutral, your nervous system has a chance to recalibrate and realize it doesn't need to guard so hard anymore. Think of it like a factory reset for your neuromuscular system. In my classes, I joke that this is “gaslighting therapy”—it feels like nothing is happening in the moment, but when it’s done the tension is nowhere to be found (i.e., “are you sure you were in pain?”)
It's gentle. It's subtle. It's wildly effective. Witchcraft.
why this approach?
Here's the thing: if a muscle is tight or painful, it's usually not because it's short—it's because it's working too hard. Maybe it's compensating for instability somewhere else. Maybe it's bracing because your nervous system thinks you're in danger. Maybe it's stuck in a protective pattern from an old injury.
You can stretch it, foam roll it, or dig your elbow into it all you want, but if you don't address the why, it's just going to tighten back up. Neuromuscular therapy resets the nervous system's programming so your muscles can actually relax and your joints can move the way they're designed to.
This is especially important if you're hypermobile (hi, fellow bendy people). Your nervous system doesn't trust your joints to stay in place, so it cranks up the tension to create stability. These techniques help build neuromuscular stability—teaching your brain that your body is safe to move, so it doesn't have to white-knuckle its way through life.
what it feels like (and what it does)
During a session, you might feel:
A weird sense of release, like something just... let go
Increased body awareness—suddenly you can feel parts of yourself you couldn't before
A sense of ease or space in a joint
Occasionally emotional (your nervous system stores a lot, and sometimes it needs to let that out too)
After a session, people often report feeling more grounded, stable, and coordinated. Pain decreases. Range of motion improves. And—this is my favorite part—your body starts to remember how to move well on its own.
the bottom line
Neuromuscular therapy isn't about forcing your body to change. It's about giving your nervous system the information it needs to update its outdated software. It's collaborative, it's gentle, and it works with your body's natural intelligence.
And yeah, it looks a little weird. But so does fascia, and we're all obsessed with that now, so... welcome to the party.
✨ Stay well, stay curious, and stay connected to each and every one of your motor neurons!! ✨