Foundations in Myofascial Release Seminars

-Science-Informed Manual Therapy Education-

Welcome to Walt Fritz, PT’s Foundations in Myofascial Release Seminars. Walt has been teaching Massage, Occupational, and Physical Therapists for over two decades and has more recently expanded his audience of the workshops to Speech Language Pathologists and Voice Professionals. Workshops vary from the the new one-day format workshops (Jaw/Mouth, Shoulder, and Chest Wall) to longer workshops (Upper Body, Lower Body, and Neck, Voice, and Swallowing Disorders), all introducing the therapist to a novel patient-directed approach to evaluation and treatment. He teaches around the United States and internationally.

Rather than relying on a tiered, multi-level style of training, the Foundations Approach allows you to enter with any of the workshops that interests you, building from your existing knowledge and skill-set and with no pressure to take additional workshops. Each workshop explores various regions of the body, all presented from Walt’s patient-directed approach to evaluation and treatment.

Using a broader, neurologically influenced model, Walt’s goal is to bring myofascial release into greater acceptance across the medical community, something that has been hindered by MFR’s traditional roots. While older versions of MFR used explanations that seemed scientifically plausible at the time, little has been done to update those explanations into current evidence and viewpoints of pain science, movement dysfunction, and the known effects of a manual therapy intervention. As such, Walt uses the following definition for MFR:

Myofascial release (MFR) is one style of manual therapy that uses slow, still, prolonged stretching through clothing or directly on the skin to facilitate change in the patient. Whether having its primary effects on fascia, as historically believed, or on skin, muscle, other tissues, or the nervous system in general, it is realistically a more complex direct and indirect interrelationship of overlapping systems and effects. The goal of MFR is most often to reduce the feeling of tightness and to lessen pain, allowing for more freedom of movement and improvement in functional abilities. Other effects may be related to improvements in movement, performance, swallowing, voice, and many other issues. While other forms of MFR vary, The Walt Fritz, PT form of MFR relies on direct patient feedback to drive evaluation and treatment, assuring that interventions are patient-centered.

Walt calls his work myofascial release due to the style of hands-on engagement that most resembles traditional gentle, sustained myofascial release treatment, rather than from the belief that one can singularly and selectively target fascia (connective tissue) beneath the skin to the exclusion of all other tissues, as many in the myofascial release field believe.

Having an explanatory narrative that takes into account possibilities beyond just fascia opens the door of for a wider range of outcomes. The patient-directed model of evaluation and treatment utilized in Walt’s approach allows for less reliance on the specificity of techniques and instead moves the conversation over to the patient, who drives the intervention.

“I believe it more important to teach a model of manual care that stresses basic understandings of the therapeutic engagement rather than teach in a manner that stresses specificity of techniques or perceptions of tissue-specific actions. Awareness on the part of the patient may be one of the more important aspects of manual care, one which my approach respects. During each workshop we work our way through the body utilizing techniques, but these techniques are simply stepping stones to deeper understanding of the mosaic of the human being. What we do, ultimately, is help people feel more comfortable in their bodies so that they can move more easily and, in effect, heal themselves.“

Please explore the website for details on Foundations in Myofascial Release Seminars for speech language pathologists, massage therapists, physical therapists, occupational therapists, and others with a license to touch. Watch some of the videos that highlight aspects of Walt’s approach and check out the Medbridge Massage online CEU trainings. And feel free to ask questions.

 Walt Fritz, PT