If you're a weekend warrior who's been slowed down by a nagging injury, or just have a muscle ache that won't go away, Dr. Jeff Roush says he has good news.

Roush, a naturopathic physician at Helena's Naturopathic Acupuncture Clinic recently became certified in a technique called neuromuscular re-eduction. He is the only certified practitioner in the state.

According to Roush, the technique can help increase range of motion and strength and decrease pain in people who have nagging injuries that won't go away.

"When someone heals in a maladaptive way there's usually some muscular malady," Roush said. "(This treatment is) to bring function back to a particular structure and/or joint and to relieve pain."

Roush said the treatment targets the fascia, which he said is like a fishnet stocking that surrounds every muscle in the body. As with a stocking, he said, it's not as functional when it's been torn, and dysfunction with one muscle can lead to problems with other muscles.

"The idea of NMR is to bring better health back to that fishnet stocking," Roush said.

Most of the treatments require the patient to participate in the treatment, performing a particular motion as the doctor manipulates the muscle.

"About 80 percent of the moves require a patient to be participatory. And the whole reason for that comes back to optimal function," Roush said. "You're trying to restore the range if motion in a particular joint, and the only way to do that is to take the joint through the whole range of motion."

As the manipulations are performed, patients can feel pops and cracks in their muscles. Roush said the pops are adhesions in the muscles -- condition in which bodily tissues that are normally separate grow together -- breaking up.

It is at times painful, as Roush manipulates deep tissue during the treatment. He tells patients to expect to feel a little bit more sore than usual the day after receiving treatments, but that the pain soon goes away.

Roush said the treatment is especially effective for pain in shoulders, neck, low back and hips.

"Those are the major areas of movement within our body," Roush said. "That's the beauty of the whole thing, it can be used for every area of the human body."

Roush said that unlike some other pain management disciplines in which the patient is required to come back an indefinite number of times, this treatment improves range of motion and pain right off the bat, and that most people feel completely better after four treatments.

He said that if patients aren't seeing improvements after four treatments, he stops treatment.

Each half hour session costs $75.