JESSUP, Pa. — Talia Walsh, the owner of Quest Studio in Jessup, has clients on her table as young as 8 and as old as 90. Athletes and Parkinson's patients, at bridal parties and golf tournaments, all benefit from a unique treatment called fascial stretch therapy.
"Fascial stretch therapy is a pain-free form of stretching where it's assisted stretching, so you're on a massage table, comfy, relaxed, and I do all the work for you," Walsh explained.
That work involves stretching the muscles throughout your body, not just where you're experiencing pain. The relief occurs almost immediately in most cases.
"This girl slept on her shoulder wrong and had this limitation for about a year, year and a half. So, this was one session, and she hasn't been back since."
While some clients are just looking for a one-time fix, others like to come regularly for pain or stress relief.
Katie Leonard stops in for a session as needed for her hip pain.
"I'm a big hiker, walker, strength training. I do a lot of the classes here, so for me, when I started to feel a little bit of pain, I don't want anything stopping me from enjoying my exercising," Leonard said.
As the name suggests, fascial stretch therapy works your fascial system, which is connective tissue that surrounds every structure in your body.
"This tissue ... covers our entire body underneath the layer of our skin, and then we have a few, about seven, major fascial systems that are our deep fascial net. So, if you think of the strings that are in between the slices of an orange, they all interconnect."
Walsh learned about the technique during a trip to California, then spent more than a year getting trained.
"It's based out of Arizona. And so, it's trying to make its way here, so I'm glad that we have a lot of the tools here in Jessup, in northeast Pennsylvania, to share it."
Check out WNEP’s YouTube channel.