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Active Release: The Secret Weapon for Stubborn Sports Injuries
D
|August 20, 2026 5 min readDr. Mike Paonessa
Chiropractor
You rested it. You iced it. You stretched it. And the moment you start training again, that same ache comes right back. If that sounds like your tennis elbow, Achilles, or shoulder, the problem probably isn't the muscle, it's the scar tissue stuck inside it.
What scar tissue actually is
Every time a muscle or tendon gets a small injury, your body patches it with scar tissue. It's tough, it's sticky, and it doesn't stretch like healthy tissue. Over months of training, those patches build up, the muscle can't move freely, and the tissue around it gets overloaded. That's the chronic ache that won't quit.
How Active Release fixes it
ART is a hands-on technique where we find the exact spot of scar tissue and apply precise tension while you move the muscle through its range. It literally breaks the adhesions apart so the tissue can slide and stretch normally again. It's not a massage, it's targeted, specific, and it works fast.
- Tennis and golfer's elbow
- Achilles tendonitis and shin splints
- Rotator cuff and shoulder impingement
- Plantar fasciitis
- Carpal tunnel and pinched nerves
Athletes are usually amazed that the painful spot is also the fix. It's uncomfortable for a moment, then the movement comes back almost immediately.
If an injury has lingered more than a few weeks despite rest, it's almost always scar tissue, and rest alone will never break it up. That's exactly what ART is built for.
The takeaway
Chronic sports pain is often scar tissue, not weakness. Breaking it up directly is what finally gets you back to training without the ache returning.
#ART#Sports Injuries#Recovery
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