When Manual Therapy Alone is Not Enough

As many of you know, the full name of our method is “The Morales Method® of Manual Therapy and Body Conditioning”. While the “Manual Therapy” portion of this title is a bit more obvious, some of you may be wondering about that other part of our name, ‘Body Conditioning’. What is that little phrase at the end of the title?

Well, the origin goes back to the beginning of the method and my training. In the Rolfing® world, I was lucky to have Rolfing® instructors introduce me to the idea that manual therapy was only one side of the coin when it came to treating clients. My teachers believed that in order to completely treat a person, another type of bodywork or therapy other than manual therapy might be necessary. As did Yoda, they believed, “There is another”.

Although manual therapy is very powerful, over the years I’ve noticed that what my teachers said was true, sometimes a client needs more than just manual therapy to improve. While I have noticed there is a range of different approaches that can supplement manual therapy including acupuncture, psychotherapy, energy work, and more, in my case, I personally gravitated toward a type of bodywork centered around client movement/exercise.

In my practice, I've noticed that sometimes, the reason for a person’s dysfunction could be related to a muscle weakness/imbalance, a motor control issue, or improper muscle recruitment. I’m aware that, to some extent, these terms may all mean the same thing. So, I decided to use the word ‘conditioning’ to represent the concept of building the desired response based on providing the client with certain stimuli, thus tying all these terms together. I felt that conditioning is so important that I wanted to make sure it was a clear part of our approach in the Morales Method®.

Throughout the years, I have been playing with the concept of “body conditioning” in my practice when I find that manual therapy alone isn't hitting the mark. I am trained as a Rolf Movement Practitioner, but I would not say that I am an expert in this space by any means. For this reason, I brought in Monica Canducci and her Move in Mind™ method to the Morales Method® for more resources on what we can do to supplement our manual therapy work. Monica is the founder and developer of ‘Move in Mind’. Her movement program embraces movement and exercise to approach dysfunction that may arise from imbalance/improper recruitment/motor control issues. I’m grateful to have her on the team and to have this as part of the Morales Method®. Check out the details on the Move in Mind™ Program or the Move in Mind: Level 1 Online Course (11.0 CEUs)!