The Wonders of Bowenwork Exposed by Sean Wolf

It was about six years ago that I was at an AMTA massage convention and had my first exposure to Bowenwork. I was in looking around the exhibit hall and saw a man calling people over to experience this form of bodywork. I stood there and watched him check their range of motion, do a few little flicks and re-check the range. To my amazement it significantly improved for most of them. My initial thought was “he has to be paying them off; there is no way that can work.” Having done deep tissue, trigger point and myofascial release for the past few years; I couldn’t understand how something so simple could do that. I have to admit that I was curious, so I put my card in his bowl for more information.

About 3 weeks later I received notice that the club I was working at would pay for continuing education. The very next day I received an email from Kevin Minney, the man at the convention. He was starting a module 1 Bowenwork class, what timing! I figured if the club would pay for it I can go and show him why what he does can’t work, and get my CE credit at the same time. In the beginning of the class he explained how Bowenwork stimulates the body with a vibration theory, energy work, blah, blah, blah. To be honest I tuned him out. I just wanted to see how it was done. Then we started practicing the Bowenwork move on some of his clients that he brought in for us to practice on. My first reaction was “great, more people he paid off.” Fortunately for me I had already developed decent palpation sensitivity and after about 5 minutes of practicing the move on their backs I started to feel the muscles soften. My mind started to wonder if there was really something to this. The next day he had new models in the class for us practice on. The previous day we had learned some of the Bowtech procedures and now we were supposed to practice them on the new people. That is when my thoughts shifted, these new, very tense people were loosing up! All we were doing was a gentle little rolling move over specific areas on their backs and they were loosening up! I thought to my self “Why am I working so hard to get my clients to loosen up when all I have to do is a gentle roll over specific areas?”

That class had me hooked. At the time I didn’t really care how it worked, as long as it did. I had to learn more so I didn’t have to work so hard to get people to release. I was so impressed by the end of that first class that I asked Kevin what I have to do to teach this stuff. Here I am six years later as an instructor for Bowtech with a much greater understanding of how the human body works and how Bowenwork affects it.

I was fortunate to go to a great massage school. I was taught many techniques and ways of looking at the body that many other massage therapists in my area never learned. Yet much information was missing from my studies. I was never taught about the different laws of physiology and only basics about neurological processes and body responses to bodywork. It took the curiosity of wanting to know exactly how something as simple as a Bowenwork move can have such profound effects in the body for me to do the research and find out. After years of practicing Bowenwork, I am still amazed at some of the results I get, from helping women to regulate menstrual cycles and improving eyesight to still getting significant increases in shoulder range of motion within minutes. Because of these results, I do believe that there is something to the vibration, energy, and all of the other theories as to why Bowenwork works that can’t be proven, but I have found physiological reasons why Bowenwork works.

We will start with the direct physical motion of the Bowenwork move. The simple rolling motion of the move is done in such a way as to stimulate the Golgi tendon organs which attach just proximal to the tendon fibers’ attachment to the muscle fibers. This is where many of the moves take place. Golgi tendon organs are inhibitory in nature. When stimulated, these receptors inhibit the contracting muscles and excite the antagonist muscles (1). By stimulating the GTO’s in this way, we can truly say we are creating muscle balance in the area not just a release of tension. This would be one reason why Bowenwork can get a body to balance its tension much faster than conventional forms of bodywork.

Now let’s go over some laws of physiology and how Bowenwork applies them:

Arndt Shultz law states that weak stimuli activate physiological responses and very strong stimuli inhibit physiological responses. If we apply this law to bodywork it simply means lighter touch will stimulate more response in the body than heavy touch. Those who know of this law may say that it was based on chemical agents. This law was also applied to electrical current run through the body and was still shown to apply (3). It has been shown that creation of a stretch in the fascia does indeed initiate a small piezo-electrical charge. Studies have measured these and identified them as being created by the tiny collagen fibers which make up the bulk of fascia, and that these impulses have a very powerful healing effect on the body. It has also been shown that crosswise stretching of fascia as used in Bowenwork creates a more focused, stronger, but still weak, piezo-electric current than just pressing on it, or going along the length of it(2).

Hilton’s law states that the nerves to the muscles acting on a joint give branches to that joint as well as to the skin over the area of action of these muscles. By applying this law we can see how stimulating the skin over an area will also stimulated the deeper structures of the same area. One of the most common questions asked of Bowenwork is “how does Bowenwork release the deep muscles?” An example would be the pelvic procedure, by doing moves over the adductors, front of the pelvis, and glutes, we can initiate a release in the entire pelvic bowl.

The law of specificity states that the excitation of a receptor always gives rise to the same sensation regardless of the nature of the stimulus. The implications of this law show the genius of a Bowenwork move. Technique or modality is not as important as the simple process of activating a receptor to achieve a response. If the receptor can be activated by doing a simple Bowenwork move, it is not necessary to do any more to the body. Once the response is achieved, anything more that is done to the body is unnecessary.

The all or none law states that the strength by which a nerve or muscle fiber responds to a stimulus is not dependant on the strength of the stimulus. As long as the stimulus is just above threshold the nerve or muscle fiber will either give a complete response or none at all. This is where the palpation skills that are taught to Bowenwork practitioners come into play. We teach students to use just enough pressure to get the tissue to respond. Slightly different pressures will be needed with different clients. A jock may need slightly more pressure that someone with fibromyalgia.

So what does this mean for the practitioner? First, using Bowenwork puts virtually no stress on the practitioner’s body. I have yet to hear that someone had to quit practicing Bowenwork because it was to stressful on their body. Second, because we are allowing the physiological processes to take place in the client, we have short periods of time that we must wait in between each set of releases done to the client. This means we can work on multiple clients at the same time. Some Bowenwork practitioners can comfortably work with up to 6 clients at the same time without overworking themselves.

I hope this can give you a better understanding of how Bowenwork can achieve results without all of the hard physical work by the practitioner. I would encourage you to look into Bowenwork if you are looking for a simple, effective way to work with clients that will not wear out your body or an extremely effective way to work with more clients.

Copyright 2009 Sean Wolf. Sean has been a massage therapist and fitness trainer for ten years. He is a Certified Personal Trainer (NASM), Egoscue Postural Alignment Specialist, a Martial Arts instructor and a registered Bowenwork Instructor. To contact him, go to www.bodyrestorationclinic.com | To find a Bowenwork class near you go to www.bowenwork.com.

1. Phsiology of sport and exercise- Jack Wilmore/David Costill (human kinetics 1994) 3: 62
2. The Bowen technique- John Wilks (cyma ltd 2007) 1: 16
3. Arndt Shultz law and its applications- Dr. Rajeesh Sharma (similima.com 2008) p 5-8