Graston Technique

I had a chiropractor appointment this evening. Dr. Olivacz is a certified chiropractic sports physician. He asked how I was doing and I told him that I strained my calf last weekend, but was recovering well enough that I thought I was ready for a short run tomorrow. When he looked at my calf he said that he had an instrument that could speed the recovery. He said the Graston Technique is analogous to using a comb to straighten tangled hair. I felt some resistance when he rolled the instrument over my calf. It didn’t hurt, but I felt a kind of tingly sensation like when your leg falls asleep. Afterward I did some calf stretches and he told me to ice at as soon as I got home. My calf wasn’t super sore when I went in for my appointment, although I could still feel it was not 100%. It feels pretty good though now. I’ll see how it does tomorrow during an easy run. If you have any painful muscles or tendons, you may want to further investigate this technique as a remedy. I’d be interested to hear feedback from other people who have had this treatment, especially from people who have had much more serious pain than that of a strained calf.

From the Havre De Grace Chiropractic website, “Dr. Olivacz is trained in using the Graston Technique® which allows him to better detect and treat these areas because it uses a stainless steel instrument that glides along a patient’s muscle, tendons or ligaments and acts like a “scar tissue” stethoscope. When knots or bands of scar tissue are encountered, both the doctor and the patient sense a restriction or a granular feeling. The instrument can then be used to “break up” this restriction or adhesion. Stretching exercises are then used to promote re-alignment of the fibers so that they behave more like normal, healthy tissue.”