How does NMT work?

I previously explain what NMT or Neuromuscular Technique is.  In this blog post I want to focus on how NMT works.

With NMT when the static pressure is applied to the muscle, a message is sent from the muscles (via the golgi tendons & the muscles spindles both of which are part of the nervous system) to the brain and then the muscle relaxes.  Within the muscles

  • Golgi tendons respond to load or force on the muscle
  • Muscle spindles respond to the length of the muscle

The Golgi tendon operates as a protective feedback mechanism to control the tension of an active muscle by causing relaxation before the tendon tension becomes high enough to cause damage.

As the muscle relaxes it may cause a change in length which causes the muscle spindles to be reset.

There is a variety of ways that massage therapists utilise these mechanisms within a massage to trigger the body’s self protection system to relax muscles.

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