Strain and counterstrain

Within manual therapy, Strain-Counterstrain is a type of "passive positional release" created in the early 1960s by Lawrence Jones, D.O. It is a hands-on treatment that alleviates muscle and connective tissue tightness by the use of very specific treatment positions held for 90 seconds (can be hold up to 3 minutes in neurological patients). During the procedure, the involved tissue is "slackened" causing a relaxation of the "spasm" which, in turn, allows local areas of inflammation, trapped within the painful tissue to dissipate. Following this "release" there is an immediate reduction of pain and tension in the involved tissue. This relaxation helps restore normal joint mobility and is also beneficial to other structures in the region that may have been compressed. This gentle and painless technique is a very effective treatment for a wide variety of orthopedic conditions such as headaches, fibromyalgia, sciatica, tendinitis, chronic neck pain, and post-surgical conditions.

Evidence

A controlled, within-participants study of the immediate and short-term effects of strain-counterstrain intervention, on pressure pain threshold at tender points in the low back region suggested that strain-counterstrain intervention does elicit an immediate quantifiable reduction in tenderness at tender points. However, some of this reduction was found to be due to the manual-contact component of the treatment.
The addition of Strain- Counterstrain treatment to an exercise protocol was not more effective than exercise alone in reducing levels of low back pain pain and disability. The authors suggest that future studies should examine whether a subset of people can benefit from the treatment.