HEALTH & FITNESS : ATTAINING THE BODY BEAUTIFUL : Rolfing Seen as Body Balancing Act

R. Grant Powers’ knuckles are knobby and broad, perfect for moving body tissue under the skin. Powers is a certified Rolfer. Rolfing is an esoteric practice that aims to balance the human body along its vertical axis, maximizing its efficiency and minimizing destructive mechanical motions. What that means is you feel more comfortable in your body.

Powers, 42, has been practicing Rolfing, which is also known as structural integration, at his Costa Mesa office for 11 years.

“Rolfing is a system of deep connective tissue therapy or manipulation,” Powers explains as he presses his knuckles against the lower back of client Loi Coker of Huntington Beach. “The fascia--the connective tissue that surrounds the muscle--that’s what we’re going after. The fascia produces a matrix that acts as a lubricant, allowing one muscle to slide over another. The goal is to align and lengthen the tissue.” Lengthening the tissue is necessary to reach the goal of structural balance of the body.

The difference between a chiropractor and a Rolfer is that, although they have the same goals of getting the body aligned, the Rolfer focuses on balancing the connective tissue to reach that goal whereas chiropractors adjust the joints of the body, especially the spine, to reach their goal, Powers says. “And massage is a good relaxation technique but Rolfing differs from massage because we’re actually changing the structure--improving the structure.”

He says he uses his fingers, knuckles, forearms and sometimes his elbows to help move and organize the connective tissue deep in the body. Rolfing requires strength and endurance on the Rolfer’s end.

Coker, a 39-year-old flight service manager who has been a client of Powers’ for nine years, says that while Rolfing sometimes hurts, she agrees with Powers assessment of it as “a releasing type of pain.”

“Most people who hear that it’s painful are pleasantly surprised,” Powers says.

For new clients, Powers recommends a 10-session format that he calls the standard series. Each session lasts an hour to an hour and a half and costs $95. The client wears underwear or a bathing suit during the sessions.

First, Powers interviews the client, asking what kind of problems the person is having with his or her body, then he visually assesses their imbalances as they stand in front of him. He is often able to locate the problem areas simply from visual clues. During sessions, as he lengthens the tissue, he is also exploring for other problem areas.

In the first three sessions, Powers concentrates on the outer layers of connective tissue in the body. In sessions four through seven, usually called “the deep sessions,” he says he changes the person’s fundamental balance, so as a result “people will sometimes feel more out of balance than they were before they started the Rolfing,” he says.

Sessions eight through 10 bring the body to a new balance.

After the standard series, people tend to return for periodic “tuneups,” or after a year they can enter an advanced series of five sessions.

Coker, a competitive runner for Team Etonic, originally visited Powers to overcome hip and knee problems. She was told by a doctor to give up running, but after the Rolfing sessions, she has continued to run well.

Clients come in with various complaints, such as shoulder and back pain.

Rolfing was developed by Dr. Ida Rolf, a biochemist who was searching for new ways to deal with her own and her family’s health problems. Rolf died in 1979, but at the Rolf Institute in Boulder, Colo., refinement of structural integration techniques continues.

Many people exhibit the stress of a job or family life in a physical way, which is relieved through the process, but Rolfing may uncover inner emotional tension as well, Powers says.

“Most people won’t go through a cathartic emotional change, but as their physical well-being improves, so does their emotional outlook,” Powers says. “Ida Rolf always said you can’t separate physical well-being from emotional well-being.”

New clients are usually referred to Powers by health professionals or by acquaintances who have benefitted from the techniques. Clients run the gamut of socioeconomic groups, Powers says, from construction workers and housewives to medical doctors.

Athletes frequently visit him. “I’ve found that moderate exercise, done properly, does help to maintain the balance,” Powers says. “It’s when a person overtrains or does exercises not conducive to structural integrity that exercise does more harm than good.”

Despite relief from chronic aches and pains, “Rolfing is not a fix-it-up program as much as it is a way of integrating the body,” Powers says. “Only as the structure improves do chronic aches and pains tend to dissipate.”