Graston Technique

[The Mastiff]

Mark, what are your thoughts on this new mainstream trend of rehab in the form of scraping, also called the Graston technique? Seems about as useful as those glorified suction cups some people choose to put all over their bodies to give themselves giant bruises while claiming it's releasing toxins and all that nonsense.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Graston can be a useful ART method in the hands of a skilled practitioner. It can also be merely a way to make pretty bruises.

[Michael Stransky]

I had some injuries, pulled muscle I believed. So I went to this chinese doctor, explained where the pain was, what I had done etc. He then proceeded to scrape my traps and deltoids with a piece of shaped stone. It hurt so much I felt like he was rather grating meat off the bones than massaging. After ten minutes of this hell the feeling became rather numb and pain went away. Following days it felt more comfortable and pain from the original injury went away fast (in comparison with times I hadn´t had done this procedure). Looks like this Graston technique is the same. Don´t know what conclusions to draw from it though, maybe just that it forces some muscles to relax and subjectively feel better afterwards.

[idlehands]

I preferred graston to art only because one was 5 minutes away and the other was 30 minutes away and any benefit from the art went away in the car ride.

All that soft tissue manipulation is similar I've noticed.

[jintyo]

I had Graston in conjunction with ART. I felt the ART worked far more than the Graston which seemed almost like an afterthought and I wouldn't elect to have it alone. After one particular visit I experienced said 'pretty bruises'

[macorn63]

Before I learned to squat and DL correctly, I was in the chiro's office all the time. He used deep tissue massage, adjustment, and graston. Sometimes it helped, sometimes it did nothing. My skin got pretty red, but never bruised. Maybe I don't bruise easily, or maybe some practitioners are overly aggressive.

I think it's a mix of placebo, correcting how you got hurt in the first place, and your body, being all amazing and stuff, fixing itself in response to whatever cupping, shock therapy, graston, ice, heat, mix you throw at it.

If it works great. If not, stop having it done.