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The Story Behind the Development of the Muscletrac

 

The concept behind the Muscletrac® was developed by Sports Physician, David Fitzmaurice, DC, CCSP. Dr. Fitzmaurice draws from an extensive professional training and personal experience treating athletes at all levels. He has been the treating Physician for Hall of Fame Olympic Athletes, as well as professional and Hall of Fame Athletes in the world of football, baseball and hockey. In addition, he has treated an extensive list of professional athletes ranging from triathletes, mixed martial artists, golfers, marathoners, gymnasts, dancers, and ultra-marathoners to name a few.

 

His desire has always been to discover the causative factors behind the athletes' pain or dysfunction, and then engage in treatment directed at a correction to the cause rather than just treating the symptoms. He realized that many of the problems that athletes faced in improving performance and recovery were based in the health and functional status of the muscles. He used many modalities and manual methods to access the myofascial health of each athlete he treated. He concluded that much of the myofascial pain, dysfunction, poor performance and delayed recovery was a result of myofascial lesions within the muscle tissue itself.

 

These lesions have many labels to include: trigger points, adhesions, non-compliant muscles, tight fascia, interfiber cross-links, scar tissue, dense tissue and the like. He noted the presence of these created unhealthy muscles which were functionally compensated resulting in tightness, soreness, pain, poor blood supply and oxygenation, poor nutrient delivery, decreased lymphatic drainage and pooling of metabolic waste products, reduced muscle elasticity, reduced force production and range of motion-all of which imposed a ceiling on muscle performance and recovery.

 

Dr. Fitzmaurice could always address the myofascial problems through manual methods and physical therapy modalities. However, he wanted to produce a device that athletes and sportmedicine professionals could use, that would quickly find and effectively treat myofascial pain and dysfunction, as well as to access the general health of the muscle-finding areas more prone to being injured.

 

Over the years he used and tested countless probes and roller type devices of varying sizes and shapes. He determined that the roller type of devices allowed him to quickly address the entire length of the muscle, but only flattened the muscle and would not penetrate deep enough to effectively stretch and penetrate the muscle tissue and overlying fascia. The probing instruments would allow sufficient penetration of the tissue, but relied on the skill of the individual to actually palpate and find the problem areas to treat. He concluded that both approaches had significant limitations.

 

He set out on a mission to develop a performance therapy device that combined the attributes of both, with the ability to quickly navigate the entire surface area of the muscle to identify areas of restriction, then to efficiently penetrate the tissue like a probe to treat both superficial and deep tissue. Over a number of years various wheel dimensions, angles, sizes and materials were fabricated and used in a clinical setting. The angles and depths of the grooves and treads were refined, so the instrument would effectively locate and resolve performance inhibiting lesions, while segmentally stretching the tissue to increase elasticity and eliminate non-compliant muscle tissue.

 

Through extensive research and development, and countless hours of application and testing, Dr.Fitzmaurice found his quest to be complete with the development of the Muscletrac.