They say an athlete’s battle begins in the training. The medal, or the absence of it, is just the result of how much effort has been put into the preparation.
But athletes need to have their physical condition at its peak to continue high-level training when preparing for an important game or tournament. Some experience recurring pain, and when this happens, training suffers.
Athletes have a lot of pain issues because they work physically harder than normal individuals, especially those so-called super athletes. But still, their bodies have limits and the body responds by sending pain signals to the brain. And during these times, treatment is necessary.
Normally, muscle pains are treated with massage to ease them up. They have to be relaxed and rested.
And now there’s an accurate way to treat those muscles without the massage or physical therapist using their hands or thumbs.
It’s called the blading system or simply a form of therapy that uses the “Hand-Held Massage Tool.”
One of the few proponents of the blading system in the country is Drolly Claravall, an athlete and academician who is based in Ilagan City, Isabela.
After several years of practice, Claraval put up her own rehabilitation clinic called Amazing Touch, which caters to athletes and those who have chronic pain problems, and designed her own utility tool.
“They (athletes) have a lot of body pains issues, and when the blade glides in the specific area of the body it eases and relieves the pains. The blade has the capacity to detect muscle adhesions that causes the body pains due to over workout or repetitive wrong movement,’ said Claravall.
“That causes abnormal circulation and body pains If you blade the tight muscles it releases the pressure and the circulation will go back to normal and gives you relax feeling again.”
The utility tool is used to facilitate the treatment of acute and chronic body pains of athletes, fitness and sports enthusiasts, and even individuals with body pain and mobility issues, dysfunctions muscles in the quickest possible time without electricity or battery assistance.
It has an ergonomic shape that purposely imitates the hands, thumbs, and fingers of the massage therapist to provide an accurate massage technique to their client.
Among those she treated were fellow athletes in the Masters national athletics team, tennis players, even medical doctors, politicians, and business persons in Ilagan, for their problems like acute frozen shoulder, recovery from stroke, and lumbar problem.
She has also provided treatment to the national teams of dragonboat, kickboxing, and athletics that included Eric Cray, Marestella Santos, and Hocket Delos Santos. Masters athletes from Singapore, Malaysia, Brunie, India (oldest athlete 103 Man KAUR), Indonesia, Sri Ranka, New Zealand also got a taste of her blade system and gave their thumbs up.
ATHLETE AND ACADEMIC
Claravall is not your ordinary alternative therapy practitioner.
She is the regional director of the Philippine Athletics Federation (PATAFA) since 2008 up to the present and has been a member of the National Masters Athletics of the Philippines (NMSAP) since 2016 and participated in National and several international invitational competitions in Singapore, Sabah Malaysia, and China,
In 2019 in Malaysia, she took the bronze medal of women’s hammer throw in the 50-55 category. She also participated in the 2018 World Masters Championships in Malaga Spain.
Claravall is also an excellent member of the academe, being an Associate Professor V of Isabela State University, teaching Physical Education basic and major subjects, and graduate school. She also serves as Faculty Federation president of ISU, and member of the Board of Regent. She was University Socio-Cultural Director and Campus Sports Director.
It was in July 2017 when she first encountered blading system when she was informed by her cousin-doctor about a seminar on blading and taping at UP Diliman. Prior to that, Claravall has already attended a lot of training in the treatment and rehabilitation of chronic and acute paints and sports injuries.
She found the blading technique interesting. “But the problem was after the treatment there were bruises and clients felt pains during the process of therapy sessions. So, I am a little bit scared to experience it,” she shared.
AMAZING TOOL
So, Claravall thought of designing her own tool. “So I was convinced and inspired to make a design that is perfectly fitted in all areas of muscle fibers. This new tool designed is intended to assist the massage therapists, physiotherapists, Physical therapists, gym trainers, and coaches, to facilitate the execution of therapy for everybody—athletes and non-athletes, young and adult, and even senior citizens.”
For a trained expert, the tool is effective to detect and fix fascia adhesions, relieve acute and chronic body pain, improved mobility, restore dysfunctions muscles, enhance body circulation, enhance neurological pathways, speed up recovery time and relax muscle fiber.
One of those who benefitted from Claraval’s Amazing Touch tool was school principal Coleen Estrellon who had was afflicted with Gullian Barre’ Syndrome that caused her to experience numbness from lower to upper extremities due to vein infection and muscle weakness.
She was advised to undergo therapy and told that it would take six months to three years for her to recover fully.
When she sought treatment using the Amazing Touch tool, she recovered within three months. “Now, I am back to work and working normally and getting better,” said Estrellon.
Claravall’s dream is for Filipinos to use the tool in their homes, to help treat their friends and family members.
‘I have made it my mission to disseminate the benefits and efficacy of this tool for Filipinos to prevent taking up pain relievers just to ease the pain, but the source of pain is still existing. We can get treatment natural way.”