A YouTube conversation (host Ben Greenfield with practitioner Tracy) about using massage as a form of injury prevention and targeted fixes. The excerpt emphasizes working at muscle–skeletal junctions (insertions and origins), focusing on ligaments and tendons rather than just muscle belly, and contrasts deep therapeutic releases with relaxing 'serenity' massages. Ben frames Tracy as a 'mechanic for the body' who performs deep-tissue, injury-preventive work.
Work into the muscle skeletal junction here, getting into where the insertions and the exertions. So the body has two points where it connects. It comes into a place and it goes out of a place. And I like to work either side of those areas. If you can picture, like a really tight muscle, and you work this side, you work this side, you kind of soften the middle. So that's what I'm going to do here. And that's just really getting into the ligaments and tendons of the body to release as opposed to the muscle.
Belly intercostals are a tender spot.
Just imagine how you feel if somebody tickles you. But just imagine how many nerve endings are on the intercostals. I. I know lots of massage therapists who do, like, healing hands of serenity, like super relaxing, put you to sleep massages. I work with Tracy because she keeps me from getting injured. And she just fixes stuff. She's like a mechanic for the body. And like, if I just want a relaxing rub down, I'd go to anybody, but. But Tracy kind of. And I know you can do those Tracy, but she, she does more of just like a lot of the deep tissue releases and the stuff that I wouldn't classify as like, relaxing, but it's super effective.
I was reading that jaw technique just to get some verbiage when I came here, and it's a gentle approach to releasing the jaw and all this gentleness. And I'm like, well, I think that's what sets mine different from most people's jaw work is this. I'm not doing anything new when I doing that, but I'm probably. I attack it a lot harder than most people. And I've learned through working on myself where I can cross boundaries and where not to cross boundaries. And I do cross a lot of boundaries with massage.
