Health: The Art of the

Ken Portolese went to a certified Rolfer with one goal in mind.
“I was bowlegged,” Portolese says. “There’s not a lot you can do for it, but I read about Rolfing and how it can bring the body into its natural alignment, so I gave it a shot.”

Although still early in his treatments, Portolese, a Phoenix resident, credits the vigorous deep-tissue massage for improving his posture, balance and sense of well-being, and for less pronounced bowleggedness.

“I tried conventional methods that didn’t work,” Portolese says. “This is hard work and the sessions take a lot out of me. But it’s paying off.”

Rolfing, developed by biochemist and physiologist Ida Rolf in the 1960s, doesn’t target a specific injury or ailment. But the massage therapy can relieve stress, improve mobility, boost energy, improve overall well-being “and unite the mind with the body,” says Donna Jo Cross-Sutherland, the Scottsdale, Ariz., certified Rolfer who works on Portolese.

Cross-Sutherland says Rolfing has also helped children with cerebral palsy, people with back pain, whiplash, poor posture, spinal problems, and athletes such as Phoenix Suns basketball players, because it makes gravity work for the body instead of against it.

“Rolfing works on something called the fascia, the membranes that surround the muscles,” says Dr. Jeffrey Maitland of Scottsdale, Ariz., an advanced Rolfing instructor and director of academic affairs at the Rolf Institute.

“If you removed everything except the fascia, you’d have a three-dimensional blueprint of the body,” Maitland says. “If you had poor posture or an injury, you’d see where the fascia had shortened or thickened in characteristic ways. Since it’s one continuous network, if you have a shortening or thickening in any area of the network, it contorts the body and throws it out of healthy alignment.”

To relax the fascia and reset the muscles, Rolfers apply slow, sliding pressure with their knuckles, thumbs, fingers, elbows and knees. The treatments are not mild or relaxing, and they have earned a reputation for causing pain. But, that’s changing as Rolfing evolves with a gentler approach, Maitland says.

Practitioners view most discomfort as a sign that the treatment is bringing the body back into proper alignment.

Rolf believed that for optimum health, the body must be in alignment with gravity. Any deviation from the norm requires extra energy for movement and imposes unnecessary strain on the muscles. She contended that as the muscles work to compensate for injuries, the fascia surrounding them tend to bunch up and harden, creating even more strain. Ultimately, she said, the cumulative stress can impair breathing, circulation, digestion and the nervous system.

“What’s different about Rolfing from most other practices is that we deal with the whole body, head to toe,” Maitland says. “If you came to me for lower back trouble and I just worked on your lower back without changing anything else in your body and your body doesn’t adapt to that local manipulation, the body will go right back to the way it was or put the strain somewhere else.

“Rolfing decompensates all the way through the whole body and we work on the aches and pains that people have from muscular-skeletal injuries, auto accidents, sports injuries, the same reasons people see chiropractors and osteopaths.”

A standard Rolfing treatment plan, through Maitland, consists of 10 weekly sessions lasting 60 to 90 minutes and costing $80 to $125 per session, but Maitland says the programs don’t always require 10 full sessions. The effects, Rolfers say, last a lifetime.

“Ida Rolf said you cannot change your behavior if you don’t change your body,” says Cross-Sutherland, who became a certified Rolfer after being Rolfed for the first time in 1974.

“People get to a shrink to fix their mind, to church to help their soul, to the gym to fix their body,” Cross-Sutherland says. “We live split. Rolfing is about integrating all the aspects of our life to achieve a wholeness and balance.”