Manual therapy can be a helpful treatment of joints that lack of enough mobility and range of motion in certain musculo-skeletal conditions.

Manual therapy techniques are aimed at relaxing tense back muscles and restricted joints in order to decrease back pain and increase flexibility. In general, manual therapy used the following types of movement:

• Soft tissue work, including massage, which applies pressure to the soft tissues of the body such as the muscles. This pressure can help relax muscles, increase circulation, break up scar tissue, and ease pain in the soft tissues.
• Mobilization/manipulation, which uses measured movements of different speed (slow to fast), force (gentle to forceful), and distances (called ‘amplitude’) to twist, pull, or push bones and joints into position. This can help loosen tight tissues around a joint, reduce pain in a joint and surrounding tissue, and help with flexibility and alignment.