Patty Ward, owner of Ward Chiropractic, invited me to try out a stretching session. I was instructed to show up in workout clothes and block off an hour. An hour of stretching felt excessive, but at the end of the 60 minutes Ethan Johnson, the fascial stretch therapist, had to basically kick me out.
Johnson, who also holds both a personal training certification and a mobility certification, asks me to remove my shoes and hop up on the table. I’m coming straight from the gym, so I’m a little worried my socks are sweaty. But I’m nothing if not a rule follower, so off come the shoes anyway.
“Are there any areas where you’re feeling especially tight or uncomfortable?” Johnson asks me. My shoulders are my problem area. I tend to overcompensate with my traps when I’m exercising, and I type for a living.
Johnson places a pillow under my head and shares with me that most of the tightness we experience starts in our hips. I’m surprised to hear this, because I tend to think of my hips as pretty loose. Johnson says he hears from a lot of his stretchees that they have lower back pain, and he can typically alleviate most of that pain when he loosens up their hips.
There are two blue straps laying horizontally on the bed. “Which side is your looser side,” he asks me. “I’m more flexible in my right leg,” I tell him and he instructs me to place my left leg under the strap. He makes his way to the end of the bed and starts massaging my feet. I force myself not to freak out about the sweaty sock thing.
The massage feels great. “Relax,” Johnson says, lifting my leg by my toes and shaking it. He’s trying to get me to release control. I’m surprised at how hard it is for me to let my leg be dead weight in his hands.
“There are three important parts of this experience,” he says. “The first is that we should only stretch you to an 8 out of 10 on the pain scale. I don’t want you to think ‘I can’t wait until he takes me out of this move.’ The second is you need to completely relax. The third is you’ll see that each move has both a pulling and a pushing movement, but don’t worry. I’ll cue you.”
Johnson asks me to shimmy all the way to the left side of the table and he grabs my right leg at the ankle and knee, bends it and gently starts making circles with my leg. He’s moving slowly and purposefully, and I can feel my glutes (which are always very tight) and hamstrings loosen up. The stretches never hurt, and when I’m at the deepest point in the stretch they feel really great. Once I reach the deepest stretch my body can take, he asks me to push against him to release myself out of the stretch.
“Why don’t you hold the stretch?” I ask him, because I wish I could make the great-feeling stretch last longer. He tells me it’s because he utilizes a technique called proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF). PNF is meant to improve muscle elasticity, range of motion, flexibility, circulation and recovery. It includes both the muscle’s stretching (that Johnson moves me into) and the contracting (that I push myself out of).
“We used to focus on static stretching. Probably similar to how you stretch on your own after a workout,” he says. “PNF is really great for athletes or anyone who is taking part in a regular workout regimen.”
Johnson says men typically need to stretch more than women, as they’re naturally less flexible, but that getting men to even try it has been tricky. (You guys are crazy! I wish I could do this every day.)
We move to my upper body. He cues me to let my arm hang off the table, bends my arm into a 90-degree angle and begins stretching my rotator cuff. This stretch also feels great, although I notice my upper body’s range of motion isn’t as impressive as my lower body.
I start to feel my body relax similar to how it does during a massage. I remember when I first hopped up on the table, I worried this stretch session would be awkward or painful. Now, I don’t want it to end. He flexes my feet and tells me he’s doing so to check the balance in my legs. Then he twists my leg across my body and cues me to take deep breaths.
I keep waiting for him to compliment me on my flexibility, but he doesn’t. I tell myself he’s just trying to stick to the stretch session and that deep inside he’s impressed, surely. (My need for words of affirmation knows no bounds.)
The hour-long session ends with a neck stretch and massage that makes it almost impossible to go back to work. I just want to take a nap.
I didn’t know what to expect when I showed up to this stretching session, but I walked out of that building a big fan.
In my experience, Johnson’s fascial stretch therapy is worth trying at least once. Especially since the first session is completely complimentary.
For more information or to ‘experience’ this on your own, call Ethan Johnson with Stretch & Wellness inside Ward Chiropractic at 337-990-5497.
Have an idea for Diana’s next experience? Let her know by emailing her at diana.vallette@gmail.com
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