My Los Angeles Rolfing Experience

Ahhhh, it’s wintertime in Los Angeles yet I’m still wearing a T-shirt and shorts with sandals to get Rolfed today, you gotta love LA!

Okay so this marks the midpoint of my 10 session Rolfing series with Al Fielder, (shout out to Al my Hollywood Rolfing guru!!).

I must say that it’s a little bittersweet, even though every session is unique onto itself I also know that one builds on top of the other and I am part anxious to finish the series to see how it all comes together and at the same time upset that I’m already halfway done with my Rolfing journey.

But enough of that, I’ll wipe the tears from my eyes and describe my fifth Rolfing session.

My rolfer worked primarily on the front of my body from my knees to my neck. The main focus of this session though was on my abdominal muscles, and the front hips. Al mentioned that the abdominal muscles are unique in the fact that it attaches from the legs all the way up to the trunk, and that all other muscles of the leg or the trunk attach somewhere into the pelvic girdle instead.

While my stomach was getting worked on Al mentioned that I have very strong abdominal muscles. You guys should know that I am not an elite athlete however I do work out a least 3 to 4 times a week and recently my training has shifted over the last six months into more core type exercises such as pull ups, push-ups, and one legged squats.

So it felt nice to get recognized for my hard work training, but this also meant that this area was also extremely tense and tight. After working through this I thought to myself “great now I have to train all over again to get the muscles tight”, but that is not the case.

You see, I have come to realize that muscles are like Yin and Yang. The more you can relax muscle is usually also to the potential that you can test it and vice versa.

For example if you squeeze a fist really tight and then relax your hand, you’ll notice that the hand relaxes for more than if you just simply relax your hand without the squeeze.

This was true with my abdominal muscles getting Rolf. The next day when I went to work out I found that I can easily activate my muscles through direct tension more than I ever have before.

This also goes along with the mind-body connection idea that I was discussing in my last article, Rolfing Los Angeles session four.

I don’t even know exactly why it works but it does all I can tell you is that a relaxed muscle does not equal a weak muscle. In my case a relaxed muscle or to be specific in Rolfing terms a relaxed connective tissue, equals a strong structural foundation allowing your muscles she reached her full strength potential.

That’s all for now join you for Rolfing Los Angeles session number six