Sue Sitter/PCT Tamie Bisbee of Release Point Stretch Therapy holds a ball of pegs held together with tension from elastic strings. The strings represent fascia in the body.

The fascial work Release Point Stretch Therapy in Rugby offers will straighten knots in tissue and relieve pain, but it won’t do a thing for laugh lines or crows’ feet.

“Some people hear the word ‘fascial’ and they confuse it with ‘facial,'” said Tamie Bisbee, a stretch therapist and certified Life Stretch instructor said, smiling.

Bisbee’s office has a large, cushioned table like most medical or chiropractic treatment rooms with lots of space around it. Bisbee explained that she uses the space to move to arms and legs away from the table to stretch fascia, a web of tissue connecting muscles.

“Everybody has fascia,” Bisbee said. “It’s in your body from head to toe and it’s the largest connective tissue system in the body. It’s the outer covering of bone and it all intermingles. It’s a webbing that connects the muscles, nerves, organs together.”

“So,” she added, “That gets over time and with day to day activities, overworked. There are lots of things that affect fascia.”

“Fascia’s what holds us up,” Bisbee added. “Everyone thinks our muscles hold us up. But if they didn’t have the tensegrity (tensional integrity) of the fascia, muscles are just blobs with nothing to hold them up.” To demonstrate her point, Bisbee held up a ball-shaped network of pegs held together with black elastic bands. “It’s like the tension of all your fascia that holds all your muscles up. If we didn’t have fascia, the muscles can’t stand by themselves,” Bisbee said.

Bisbee said as people move, work and exercise, their fascia “gets knotted and kinked up, which restricts the area that your muscles and nerves have to move in. So, when we work all the fascial nets, creating more space inside the body, then the muscles have more area to move in which then eliminates the pain.”

“It’s a hard feeling to describe, because standing here, you can’t feel your fascia,” Bisbee said. “But seeing as it’s all integrated, a lot of people have pain in one area, but it may stem from over here,” Bisbee said, tugging on one band and causing the ball’s shape to change. “Because if you’re torqued here or kinked up here, see how it torques on the whole body?”

With fascial stretch therapy, Bisbee said, “you get help with circulation. You have more range of motion, flexibility, mobility, all of that among many other health benefits.”

Bisbee said she also plans to hold classes for her clients to teach them fascial stretching techniques they can do on their own to relieve pain.

She learned the program, called Life Stretch, from a fascial therapist named Tom Myers.

Bisbee said she also learned a technique called body reading from Myers. “You learn how to distinguish which fascial net needs lengthening, shortening and how to determine that,” she said.

Some of the techniques are specific to sports, however, she said, “The sports specific is not just for athletes but it tells you about different areas you can’t get to in the three levels that you’re in. I’ve used shoulder stretching with pitchers; I’ve used the techniques for people who’ve had frozen shoulder and things like that.”

“It also helps with athletes, too, young or old,” she added.

“This is for all ages,” Bisbee said. “My youngest client is nine, all the way up to 75. I can help high school athletes and other athletes very much.”

Bisbee said she began her practice in her hometown of Leeds, traveling to clients’ homes. She moved her office to a space at Wild Minds Studio in Rugby in 2019.

After a state-mandated closure due COVID-19 last year, she said she reopened in May and has been seeing clients since then. The Rugby Chamber of Commerce welcomed her March 15.

“It’s been great. It’s rewarding,” Bisbee said, describing her work. “It’s fun to be able to see people feel better and feel able to help.”

Release Point Stretch Therapy is open Monday through Friday. Appointments can be made by calling 701- 208-0198. “There is a Release Point Facebook page and Instagram page, too,” Bisbee said.