Sit, Stay, Heal: Love Your Muscles Like You Love Your Dog
Discover how deep tissue massage in Minneapolis can be the key to maintaining muscle health, much like the right care ensures a happy, healthy dog.
Ever wondered why your muscles sometimes feel like they've run a marathon, even when your biggest adventure was a trip to the grocery store? Let’s unpack this mystery together, using an analogy quite relatable to anyone whose family or friends have included a dog. Think of your muscles as an enthusiastic, bouncy young dog — always ready to play, full of energy, and needing the right mix of attention, rest, and exercise to stay healthy. If a dog doesn’t get the proper care and training it needs, it can act out and start acting in ways that frustrate and confuse you.
WHY does this spot in my back hurt?? WHY does my dog keep digging a hole in my backyard?
It’s frustrating when your muscles (or dog) are causing problems and you don’t understand why. What do you do, if you’re not sure what’s causing the problem? All dogs want to be a good dog, at their core. And the same is true of muscles — they want to work and function the way they’re supposed to. But how do you get a dog to be “good”? How do you get your muscles to function properly? The answer is the same for both dogs and muscles — you have to understand how they work and what they need.
Just as a playful dog needs specific routines and training to learn how to behave, your muscles need specialized care to recover and function optimally. This is where deep tissue massage in Minneapolis steps in, offering a strategic approach to muscle maintenance.
Muscles,The Powerhouses of Our Bodies & Dogs, Our Best Friends
Muscles are muscles. Dogs are dogs. What makes them similar?
Dogs want to run. Dogs want to play. Dogs were socialized and bred to do things. Dogs need jobs.
Muscles need jobs. They exist to do stuff. It’s OK if they’re not doing a lot — but they need to do something.
If we don’t give our dogs jobs, if we don’t help them learn how to be good dogs, they will “misbehave” and develop a whole range of annoying habits.
If we don’t give our muscles jobs, if we don’t train them, they will also develop a whole range of annoying patterns and habits.
What makes a “good” dog? What makes a “good” muscle?
A Dog’s Need for Physical Activity
A dog wants to run the whole length of the yard – you want to give your dog room to get their zoomies out. If you put your dog outside on a short leash and it doesn’t get to run, it might get antsy and that’s how you end up with a dog who chews up your favorite pair of shoes.
Muscle Health & Functionality
When muscles aren’t getting their full range of motion regularly with varied movement, they can get tight or restricted. Your muscles aren’t trying to fight you, they’re reacting to the input you give them. If you don’t use them, they atrophy and tighten up to support your joints without muscle strength. If you overdo a single motion, they can get strained and injured because they’re not properly supported by other muscles around them.
It’s better if a muscle gets to exercise in its whole range of motion, just like the dog you bring to the dog park and let run around as much and as far as it wants.
What Dogs And Muscles Need
When your dog gets enough play time, training and attention, it’s less likely to act out. In the same way, it’s intrinsically good to do a variety of movements exercising with your muscles – it helps them perform their basic functions without getting stuck in a rut.
It’s always good practice to train your dog in different contexts. They’ll be much more responsive to commands in new situations when they’re used to that. Your muscles need the same thing. The more ways you move, the more ways your muscles allow you to move. You also build structural support that could come in help when you’re doing something unexpected. You’re much less likely to injure yourself if you have varied strength around your joints.
Preventing Injury Through Proper Training
Moving your body regularly and using it in a variety of ways helps reduce the chance of injury. Your muscles have to be prepared for what you’re asking them to do. If you try to run a marathon without training, you will get injured. Decide what you want your body to do, and then take care of your muscle sso they can do it. Bodies have limitations that will guide this.
A dog has to have skills to be able to do what you want it to – you can’t expect your dog to walk nicely on a leash or roll over without being trained. Dog also has limitations; some dogs love to swim while others will never enter water.
How Muscles and Dogs Speak: Understanding Signals and Responses
Why Regular Deep Tissue Massage in Minneapolis Can Help
Just like socializing your dog, regular massage helps your muscles cooperate because they know what to expect. They become more receptive to bodywork over time. One massage won’t completely fix what’s happening in your body; but, you wouldn’t expect to see immediate results after taking your dog to one training class, either. It takes repetition, time, and most importantly, patience.
Barking is a cue / a sign — feedback, just like your muscles feel pain or tightness – there is feedback about something that is needed. When you’re keyed into the cues your dog is giving you, you can better respond to what they need. And if you’re not paying attention to your dog and miss those cues, you’ll be confused and frustrated by the ways your dog acts. A dog can’t speak English. Your muscles can’t communicate in English, either – they only have a certain way they can communicate information to you. Pain, tension or tightness, restricting your movement, soreness or aching.
Deep Tissue Massage: A Muscles’ Best Friend
Your body is giving you information about what it needs. Sometimes it wants to work out or move, but it’s just stuck and stretching isn’t helping — this is where massage is helpful; getting your body and muscles out of an adhered, frozen pattern or releasing tension so the movements and exercise you do can be more impactful.
Dogs, and muscles, are not necessarily smart – they just knows what they need to do right now – like a guard doggie, barking at whatever noise comes at the door. We want to give the dog direction, just like we want to give muscles direction – building trust with the dog so it knows when we want it to bark and when not to. We want the muscles to know when we want them to work and when they should be resting.
Every Person and Every Dog is Unique
How Our Minneapolis Providers Use a Tailored Approach To Deep Tissue Massage
All dogs are different.
All bodies are different.
Some things you can’t change – your dog has a personality and there are some things you just can’t train in or out of your dog, what it likes or enjoys, what it’s drawn to.
Sometimes you may have a chronic condition in your body that can’t be completely eradicated, and you just have to cope with it. In these situations, it’s better to understand what you’re working with – if you have a highly anxious dog you might train it differently than a very chill calm dog.
Some conditions constantly build up tension in your muscles, so you might need frequent massage to help your body stay loose and ready for physical activity. Chronic illnesses can soak up your energy and leave you unable to exercise the ways you’d like. If you live in Minneapolis, getting regular deep tissue massage from us can help address the unavoidable tension you get from reduced mobility.
It’s important to remember that the unique personality of your dog and condition of your body do not mean that your dog or your muscles are bad. Taking time to listen closely to the ways your dog or muscles respond to stimuli can help you achieve your goals more readily. Your dog is trying its best to be a good dog. Your muscles are trying their best to be good as well.
Why comparing muscles to dogs is a helpful tool
It’s a reciprocal relationship.
You get what you put in.
Changing our perspective
The analogy between muscles and dogs offers a helpful perspective on the care and maintenance of our bodies. emphasizing a reciprocal relationship where understanding and attentive care lead to optimal functionality and well-being.
We feel less antagonistic towards our muscles, which helps us feel curious and compassionate instead of angry.
Comparing our muscles to dogs can help us think of them as friendly companions, instead of enemies working against us. It’s a part of you, and your muscles, like dogs, just wanna do a good job. They’re always trying their best. They’re only ever reacting to you and what you give them. They will only know how to do what you show them or what you train them to do. If you don’t train your dog, it’s just going to do whatever reactively in the moment.
