Muscle contractures - Massage as treatment?

Dear Drs.,

I have a colleague here who told me she had a real bad muscle contracture on her upper back region a few years back and that she had tried everything to treat it.

She told me nothing worked until she went to a PT and had 4 sessions of massages.

I’ve read some of your pain science content (extremely interesting) and I know what your take is on PTs and massages but I’d just like your thoughts on her experience. In this case were the massages actually useful to at least reduce/remove symptoms of the contracture? Was it all just placebo or just healing over time? Is there a difference between removing the symptoms and actually healing the contracture in this context?

Also, do you have any references of studies done on this kind of issue? I haven’t found anything…

Thank you very much!
Matteo

Healthy people dont just randomly develop true “contractures”, so I’d first wonder how this diagnosis was made.

With that said, we discuss the topic here: https://www.barbellmedicine.com/mobility-explained/