Our Myofascial Release courses are designed to help you treat pain with confidence
Learn to treat chronic and acute pain in your client without hurting yourself. Find the source of the pain and identify the myofascial tension patterns that are creating the pain. These are usually not the site of the chief complaint but somewhere else. Where? That’s where learning myofascial anatomy and a listening based approach come in!
Myofascial work should be gentle yet profound, the result is it’s easy on your body, AND it does not overwhelm the client's nervous system. Instead it invites them to experience their system in a new way, which builds your client’s interoception.
Our MFR approach offers you 3 interrelated skillsets
Myofascial Hand Skills
Learn to listen to the body and follow the tension patterns in your client’s system.
Myofascial Map
Learn to interpret your listening findings and organize your treatment by following the body instead of a protocol.
Immediately Applicable Techniques
This is where you will learn to apply specific myofascial treatment principles and myofascial mapping, and put listening hands into action.
Technique Example
In this clip, Michael explains and demonstrates an MFR TLF release and the difference between Direct and Indirect Techniques. The videos are part of the resources available in the online classroom as part of the workshops.
Listen to the Body,
Follow the Map
This means less effort for you and greater impact for your client or patient.
Listening Hands
Our listening hands approach emphasizes touch that is curious, receptive, and responsive
The core of Moving Mountain’s myofascial approach is listening to the tissues and responding to what we feel or hear, thus engaging the wisdom of the body. We teach you to listen to the tissues, follow the body’s wisdom via tension patterns, and apply gentle stretching or compression techniques.
When the body becomes more communicative, we can work more effectively. People say work smarter not harder, but don’t really tell you how. We got you!
Mapping the Body
Our Myofascial Release curriculum gives you meaningful maps of the body to following during treatment
The myofascial web is one of the major ways that tension becomes patterned through the regions of the body. Our approach utilizes myofascial mapping and engages the body’s potent, inherent fascial properties. The result is less effort for the practitioners and more effective outcomes.
As you develop your myofascial listening and responding skills, then combine them with an understanding of the myofascial maps, your work will evolve in meaningful ways for your clients and you!
Four Ways Acupuncturists Benefit from this Course
If you are an acupuncturist and want to integrate bodywork into your practice this is a great course series for you! Specific benefits for acupuncturists and others doing East Asian bodywork:
- Learn the anatomy of the sinew channels
- Improve your channel palpation and channel diagnostics
- Improve your point location and needling skills
- Understand the biomechanics of common injuries in a way that integrates with the channel perspective offered by East Asian medicine.
How Your Training Is Structured
We suggest doing the workshops as a series, however you can take them one at a time
Each workshop compliments the others and together comprises an approach that is immediately clinically useful. The techniques will continue to evolve as your skills evolve, long after a workshop ends.
Five 1-day workshops covering regions of the body.
All workshops are held in person with a rich selection of lectures and other materials provided prior to each workshop in our online classroom.
MFR-TLF is the foundational gateway to the rest of the curriculum.
All workshops are eligible for 6 PDA/CEU by NCCAOM, OBNE, and NCBTMB.
Learn More about each workshop
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As our foundational course, this is packed with the goods!
HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE
Fascial properties: this is arguably the most rapidly evolving topic in physiology and has profound implications for all types of hands-on therapies and acupuncture.
Understanding the key role the TLF plays in all types of myofascial tension patterns.
Myofascial hand-skills. Myofascila work is more subtle than just sheer stretching. In this workshop you will be introduced to a hands-on approach that will improve all of your other work, including needling if you are an acupuncturist.
WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS COURSE
Put all that cool information in our hands! First and foremost we will focus on myofascial hand-skills.
Treatment principles, including indirect and direct techniques and a “long lever,” using body position to create either a stretch or compression in the system.
Specific techniques for:
Thoracolumbar fascia
Thoracolumbar junction (a key aspect of our myofascial map and essential in treating many pain patterns)
Lumbrosacral junction and sacroiliac joints
Ilio-lumbar ligament.
INCLUDED IN THE COURSE
In-person workshop Technique Manual with detailed description of all techniques covered with images to support your practice after class.
Your in-person learning is supported by online lecture content in our flipped classroom, highlights include:
Fascial properties that relate to hands on work and myofascial pain patterns.
Information about the fascia you can share with your clients to help them understand their body.
Unique approach to myofascial work that includes an indirect and direct approach to the work - not found in most other myofascial courses.
Fun and interesting connective anatomy lectures that will help you build your myofascial map. You will come away with deep appreciation for the interconnectedness of this structure with the rest of our body, including the abdomen and both upper and lower extremities.
After the in-person workshop you will continue to have access to the lectures to support your practice and skill development. It’s our belief that the real learning occurs after class when you put the skills to work and this is why our online classroom exists!
Subsequent courses build on these skills and concepts.
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*NOTE: MFR-TLF is a foundational requirement and prerequisite for all other workshops, whether you are taking the MFR Series or individual workshops.
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We like to think of the psoas, quadratus lumborum, and diaphragm as one structure with three aspects. Each is potent in its own right, together they are the core of our trunk and influence so much of our embodied experience.
WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS COURSE
Learn how to effectively release the diaphragm without digging under the ribs!
Gentle but powerful psoas work your clients can actually receive without experiencing pn and unhelpful nervous system activation.
Dynamic approaches for the quadratus lumborum, including sidelying work with a long lever and myofascial stretching. These techniques are indispensable for treating low back pain (and even shoulder, hip and knee pain).
Techniques for the obliques and transverse abdominis
Release for the tensor fascia latte
INCLUDED IN THIS COURSE
In-person workshop Technique Manual with detailed description of all techniques covered with images to support your practice after class.
Your in-class learning is supported by online lecture content in our flipped classroom, which includes:
A deep dive into the interrelated anatomy of these three muscles with a special emphasis on the diaphragm as both a physical structure and a nervous system structure.
The beauty and power of the psoas.
The essential role the QL plays in LBP and other pain patterns.
Link between psoas and referral to tensor fascia lattae
Why it’s most helpful to see these structures together instead of separate.
How to use myofascial stretching with your myofascial work.
After the in-person workshop you will continue to have access to the lectures to support your practice and skill development. It’s our belief that the real learning occurs after class when you put the skills to work and this is why our online classroom exists!
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This course will integrate your work with the TLF and Psoas-QL-Diaphragm complex with the powerful hip rotators. The core focus of this course are multiple approaches to gluteus medius and the piriformis — arguably two of the more impactful myofascial structures for the lower back and lower extremities.
WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS COURSE
Myofascial releases for the glutes, with special focus on the very important gluteus medius.
Myofascial release for the pirifomris.
How to locate and release the sacrotuberous ligament.
Myofascial stretching for the glutes and piriformis — a key component of treatment for these strucutres and treating LBP.
INCLUDED IN THIS WORKSHOP
In-person workshop Technique Manual with detailed description of all techniques covered with images to support your practice after class.
Your in-class learning is supported by online lecture content in our flipped classroom, which includes:
The myofascial continuity between the glutes, TLF, sacrotuberous ligament and hamstrings.
Parallel with the bladder sinew channel from East Asian medicine.
Differentiating internal and external hip rotators and understanding their dynamic role in pelvic stability.
Gluteus medius and common gluteal nerve entrapment, and how it mimics sciatic pain.
The relationship between the pirifomris and sciatica.
After the in-person workshop you will continue to have access to the lectures to support your practice and skill development. It’s our belief that the real learning occurs after class when you put the skills to work and this is why our online classroom exists!
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This course will help you take your neck work to the next level. You will learn new ways to approach the scalenes and elegant techniques for the under-appreciated anterior cervical myofascia (home to many issues associated with vagal system dysregulation).
Most significant and persistent neck pain involves the scalenes and they will be our main focus. A special emphasis is placed on using passive and active movement combined with our myofascial release skills to address neck issues.
WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS COURSE
How to locate, differentiate and treat the scalenes. Identify if your client has reversed breathing.
Movement based techniques for the scalenes.
Gentle yet profound treatment for the anterior cervical myofascia and upper thorax - this is great for neck issues and chest tension related to post-covid sequelae.
Techniques for the suboccipitals and posterior cervical myofascia.
Gain confidence to treat the neck with movement and myofascial release combined to offer your patients a treatment experience that will make them want to return to your table!
INCLUDED IN THIS COURSE
In-person workshop Technique Manual with detailed description of all techniques covered with images to support your practice after class.
Your in-person learning is supported by online lecture content in our flipped classroom, highlights include:
Conceptual understanding of the anatomy of the scalenes, this will help you build your confidence to do more dynamic work with these myofascial structures.
Learn how the scalenes relate to reversed breathing patterns.
Interaction of brachial plexus with the scalenes and common brachial plexus referral patterns; primary consideration in understanding and treating any upper extremity issue.
The beautiful anatomy of the anterior cervical myofascia and its profound connections with the heart, pericardium and viscera. This is a unique perspective not offered in many hands-on trainings.
Sub occipitals link with the dura and cranial circulation (an important consideration in many cases of brain fog).
After the in-person workshop you will continue to have access to the lectures to support your practice and skill development. It’s our belief that the real learning occurs after class when you put the skills to work and this is why our online classroom exists!
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Shoulder work should be fun and dynamic, much like the shoulder itself!
We will learn techniques in the prone, supine and side-lying positions. We will engage long levers in multiple orientations. All of which will add up to students developing a much deeper understanding of the shoulder and feeling empowered to approach shoulder issues confidently.
WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS COURSE
How to assess and treat the myofascial structures impacting the scapulothoracic joint (key to most effective shoulder treatment)
Integrating levator scapula work with your scalene and rotator cuff work
Sidelying work for the shoulder
Myofascial movement techniques to release the rotator cuff and other structures.
Techniques for the pec minor and major.
Treating the latissimus dorsi and integrating with the TLF.
INCLUDED IN THIS COURSE
In-person workshop Technique Manual with detailed description of all techniques covered with images to support your practice after class.
Your in-class learning is supported by online lecture content in our flipped classroom, highlights include:
Unpacking the dynamics of the scapulothoracic joint
Identifying the serrato-rhomboid complex
Interrelationships between the rotator cuff structures
How the levator scapula bridges neck and scalene issues with the shoulder.
The pec minor and the brachial plexus
Myofascial anatomy of the latissimus dorsi and trapezius.
After the in-person workshop you will continue to have access to the lectures to support your practice and skill development. It’s our belief that the real learning occurs after class when you put the skills to work and this is why our online classroom exists!
What People Are Saying
TESTIMONIALS FROM OUR STUDENTS
