There is plenty of research to show that this works

At the end of the day, it’s about keeping customers happy and coming back

Physiotherapist Jarmo Ahonen is perhaps Finland’s best-known figure in manual therapy, having treated elite athletes such as Jarkko Nieminen, Teemu Selänne and the Finnish Olympic squad.

In an interview, he explains why he works with Atlasbalans M1 and why he thinks more therapists should start using treatment tools.

Anyone who has read up on Fascia knows that it is the future

Many times, people have been practicing manual therapy for so long that they think they need their hands to get results, while saying: “My hands get so tired, so how can I go on like this?”

I argue that if they have a good feeling in their hands, they get a lot of help from the machine because they know how to use it and where to put it.

Anyone who has read up on fascia therapy knows that it is the future. We just can’t ignore it anymore. It also means that we need to have more and more equipment, more and more tools to be able to treat fascia and if you don’t have that, then you continue to be stuck with what you had before.

Everything evolves, so you have to evolve with it.

There is plenty of research to show that this works

Many people I think get caught up in things being scientifically proven, but they often forget that much is proven scientifically and that the same principle applies across the board, e.g., if Paccini receptors respond to vibration and oscillatory motion – then so does all vibration and oscillatory motion.

So although it has not been tested with this particular machine, it is an effect that exists, so if the machine uses vibration and oscillatory motion – then yes, it stimulates Paccini receptors.

It doesn’t matter if it’s done with a machine or with your hands, the research is still there, so you don’t have to perform the same scientific proof over and over again.

Many times people have an opinion before they have even tried and that is not good.

At the end of the day, it’s about keeping customers happy and coming back

Generally, my clients are happy with the treatment because they feel the pain is going away and the treatment itself is not too painful.

One example is dancers, because they often get very tight hip muscles, so you use it once and they say “Oh this is great” they call the next time and say “Can I come and you drill my hip again?” because they feel the difference immediately.

It’s a wide range of problems, anything to do with an area where you have a lot of tension on tendons or ligaments or any fascia structure that is too tight.

So it can be in any part of the body.

I just learned from Hans what is good for frozen shoulder, we tried it on a couple people and it seems to work well. To also work deep on the abdominal muscles, that way it goes to the psoas muscle and you access the whole back and hip.

When they do try it, they almost always say “wow, that was good!”

Sell your car and buy the machine!

No but, we are trying to make people understand that this fascia thing is happening now, that it is coming more and more and that we know how it works. But we need things that help us work in new ways, so we can do new things

I know my field, I know how many physiotherapists are. They are often quite cautious about new things, so if you show it to someone they say “ah it can’t be that good”.

So I usually say “why don’t you try it” and when I get them to try it they say “oh this is something new, this feels good” and they feel it go away.

So yes, I think you need to test it before you can trust it and many times people have an opinion before they have even tried and that is not good.