Fine-tuning the ‘yummy machine’ through training, hands-on healing

ST. GEORGE – “How do you want to be healed?” It may seem like an unconventional question coming from the healer but that is exactly what you will hear when you enter the doors of Total Balance Health Wellness and Training Center – a physical and emotional healing center combining elements of massage, stretching, education and training to create a better, pain-free you.

It’s not that business owner Jared Gough, a licensed massage therapist and equine sports massage therapist (yes he can work on your horse, too) doesn’t know what he is doing. In fact, with over 12 years experience, having seen about 14,000 clients, Gough said, he is somewhat of an expert.

Muscular system poster at the office of Total Balance Health Wellness and Training Center, St. George, Utah, August 14, 2014 | Photo by Hollie Reina, St. George New
Muscular system poster at the office of Total Balance Health Wellness and Training Center, St. George, Utah, August 14, 2014 | Photo by Hollie Reina, St. George New

So why ask the question? The answer is twofold: One, because, as Gough said, people are most aware of their own bodies – meaning they are best equipped to know where they are hurting and how they want the problem resolved even if the answer is just that they want the pain to go away; two, Gough said, he wants to heal a person at the problem not at the symptom.

Gough often sees clients suffering from pain, he said, for example, knee pain that is only a symptom of a chain reaction of muscle compensation that probably started in the hip.

“So we ask questions in here,” Gough said, “that is how we get a basic means to write a plan for you.”

Throughout his years of experience Gough has developed his own technique for hands-on healing designed to get at the root of the problem and said that, despite his licensing, he isn’t your touchy-feely spa masseur preferring instead to be called a “muscle alignment specialist.”

It is a self-given title but one more applicable to what he does at Total Balance Health Wellness and Training Center.

“What we treat in here is we treat the problem which is the muscles,” Gough said, “if the muscles are in alignment, the body goes back into alignment … and 95 percent of the time the pain goes away.”

Gough’s technique is set apart from other forms of healing that tend to concentrate on bone and spine alignment because, he said, there are over 600 muscles in the body and only 206 bones, comparing the body to a tent.

Kathy and Jared Gough, business partners at Total Balance Health Wellness and Training Center welcome clients at the reception area, St. George, Utah, September 4, 2014 | Photo by Hollie Reina, St. George News
Kathy and Jared Gough, business partners at Total Balance Health Wellness and Training Center welcome clients at the reception area, St. George, Utah, September 4, 2014 | Photo by Hollie Reina, St. George News

“If you were to set up a tent and put only one tent pole in, then let it go, it would fall over,” Gough said. “Well, that is our skeletal system … our bones give us something for our muscles to attach to and if one of those muscles gets tight, that is what pulls the bones out; so what we focus on here is the massage and aligning the muscles.”

And unlike other treatments that see a patient returning for monthly or even weekly alignments, Gough hopes, if he is doing his job well, you won’t have to come back that often, he said.

“Our objective here is that we don’t want you to keep coming back,” Gough said, “If you are coming back once a week with no results then we have got to do something differently.”

Total Balance is a training center. Clients are taught proper rest and stretching techniques, for example, that help maintain muscle length and alignment.

“That is what this whole wellness thing is, that is why we are a training center too,” Gough said, “we teach people, we educate them.”

But perhaps what makes Gough and by extension Total Balance Health Wellness and Training Center so unique is the passion he has for what he does and the amazing piece of work he believes the body is and, with the proper maintenance, what it has the potential to be.

“Our bodies are amazing machines,” Gough said, “people can run 26 miles, people can do triathlons, people can ride 100 miles on a bike and still get up in a week and go do it again; our bodies are, our bodies are: yummy.”

Though Gough sees a variety of clients, with marathon training in full-swing, Senior Games approaching and an ever growing list of exercise fads cropping up all over town, he said, now is the time for athletes – be it weekend warriors or hard core fitness enthusiasts – to get in to his office and assess their body and take the proper steps to keeping it healthy and performing the way they want it to.

At the office of Total Balance Health Wellness and Training Center, St. George, Utah, August 14, 2014 | Photo by Hollie Reina, St. George New
At the office of Total Balance Health Wellness and Training Center, St. George, Utah, August 14, 2014 | Photo by Hollie Reina, St. George New

Steps that include symptom analysis, finding the problem and aligning those muscles, and getting educated on how to maintain that fine-tuned and yummy machine because, he said, if you don’t take care of your muscles those little pains will get worse and they won’t just go away.

“In here, through the power of touch,”Gough said, “we can help prolong any athlete’s life, if the muscles work better, the tendons feel better, the joints move better.”

Clients can expect a comfortable atmosphere that allows them to remain fully clothed during treatment, fully relaxed to facilitate better healing.

Gough’s technique – a method he has now passed on to Kory Heaton, another massage therapist in his office – releases the problem and realigns the body without irritating the muscle so while it may hurt a little, Gough said, the patient is surprised to get up from the table and rarely experience soreness.

Gough offers 50, 80 and 110 minute massages and also offers emotional healing classes – a field he got into after a personal tragedy, he said – and accepts all forms of payment; cash, checks and credit cards.

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A D V E R T O R I A L

Resources

TOTAL BALANCE HEALTH AND WELLNESS

  • Address: 107 South 1470 East, St. George, Suite 304
  • Phone: 435-313-5273

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Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2014, all rights reserved.

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5 Comments

  • choppedliver September 11, 2014 at 12:07 am

    I’m a strong believer in alternative forms of healing, but to claim that a massage therapist can “realign” your muscles which in turn will realign your skeletal composition sounds far-fetched. The massage of muscles certainly has the power to loosen ones muscle tension, but this therapist isn’t “touchy feely” and doesn’t want to deal with skin contact, so through brute force he adjusts your fibrous elastic muscle tissue in a way that your little muscle thinks, “hey some dude pushed me over, should I just stay here”?
    If I’m off base here, please correct me, but I can’t possibly see any scientific basis for this muscle manipulation.

    • Cat September 11, 2014 at 4:46 pm

      I don’t think that by saying he’s not “touchy feely” that he meant he doesn’t want to deal with skin contact, I think he means that he does the massage for results, not just a flowery-feel-good-listen-to-gongs-and-flutes type of massage. When my husband’s back was hurting, obviously he was feeling the pain somewhere in his back, but when he got a medical massage, the therapist worked on his abs and glutes as well because it was those muscles pulling too much that caused the pain in his back.

  • voice of reason September 11, 2014 at 7:44 am

    Is it just me, or does it seem like the majority of “Health and Wellness” coaches are in need of a little health and wellness themselves?

    • choppedliver September 11, 2014 at 7:08 pm

      My thoughts exactly. It is hard to place trust in an unhealthy practitioner.

  • Kim Hazlewood September 18, 2014 at 2:02 pm

    I’m a big believer in alternative health…and I’m a big believer in Jared and Kory. The work they do is precise and the healing results are outstanding. I was in a lot of pain 2 weeks out from 70.3 St. George. I had been training over 10 months for this race and to think that I might not be able to compete 2 weeks from race day was devestating. A good friend of mine had heard about Jared and recommended me to Total Balance. Jared and Kory were able to work on my muscles, help realign them into their correct, functional positions, and I was able to compete in my race with little pain. I have been to manyalternative health care practitioners in order to keep my body functioning properly, and Jared and Kory are top-notch! I would recommend them to not only athletes, but anyone struggling with pain issues. Thank you Kory and Jared for all of your help and attention…I would have never made it over the finish line without you!

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