What deep tissue actually does

It is not about pressure, and it was never about pain. It is about giving a muscle a reason to stop guarding.

People come in and ask me to go harder, as though the tissue will yield to force. It will not. A muscle that is holding is holding for a reason — usually because something nearby is not doing its share of the work. Dig into it hard enough and it will hold tighter, and you will leave sore and unchanged.

What actually works is slower and less dramatic: find the thing that is guarding, find what it is guarding against, and give the body enough time at the right depth to believe it can let go. That is why my sessions are seventy-five minutes and not fifty. The last twenty are where the change sets.