How The Utah Healer Who Says "Pain Is Not A Tight Muscle" Is Quietly Rewriting How Bodies Get Out Of Their Own Way
Featuring Michael Sudbury, Release Works (Utah).
Michael Sudbury is the founder of Release Works, a Utah hands-on healing practice that for more than two decades has specialized in helping clients release the long held physical and emotional bracing that produces chronic pain, restricted movement, and stuck emotional states. Michael Sudbury began on a different path entirely, spending four years pursuing electrical engineering before recognizing that the desk-bound future at the end of that road was not the life Michael Sudbury wanted to build. The decision to leave that career was the first of many shifts that eventually led Michael Sudbury into deep, two decade study of fascia, somatic body work, nervous system patterning, and the relationship between buried emotion and the body's protective shape. Michael Sudbury developed and now teaches the Release Works method, a fascial and somatic release approach that treats pain not as a tight muscle but as the result of how a person has been holding themselves around past wounds. Michael Sudbury serves Utah clients in person, trains other practitioners in the method, and publishes regularly across YouTube, X, and Facebook on how stress shapes the body and how the body learns to move again. Reach Michael Sudbury at release-works.com.
Filmed at Bad Bet Productions, Sandy, Utah.
Episode Summary
On this episode of Utah Business Spotlight, host Peter Anthony sits down with Michael Sudbury, founder of Release Works, a Utah practice that has spent two decades teaching bodies how to stop guarding around old injuries and start moving again. Michael Sudbury opens with a thesis most Utah operators have never heard inside a body work conversation. Pain is almost never a tight muscle. Pain is the body's long term response to how a person has been holding themselves, mentally and physically, around wounds and injuries of the past. Some of those wounds are physical. Most are emotional. Almost all of them are a combination.
Michael Sudbury walks Peter Anthony through the personal arc that became Release Works. Michael Sudbury spent four years in college pursuing electrical engineering before realizing that the version of life waiting at the end of that path, behind a desk all day, unable to talk to people, was not the life Michael Sudbury wanted. The decision to leave was the first thaw, and the years that followed gradually surfaced the question that would shape the practice. Why does Western medicine alleviate symptoms but leave the underlying cause untouched. The answer, refined over two decades of hands-on work, became the Release Works method.
The conversation turns into a clinic on the relationship between emotion and physiology. Michael Sudbury explains that every emotion has an inherent shape, an inherent tension, and the body cannot fake what it actually feels inside. When emotional and physical wounds stay stuck for years, the fascial system solidifies into the shape of that holding. Muscle patterns, mental patterns, and behavioral patterns all begin to orbit the original injury. The problem did not happen on the intellectual level. The problem cannot be resolved on the intellectual level. The path through is into the body, into the emotion, finishing the experience the body started decades ago.
Michael Sudbury and Peter Anthony close on what changes for a Release Works client once the work begins. The light bulb moment, Michael Sudbury says, arrives when a client physically feels what they have only ever intellectually understood, that the hip really is connected to the shoulder, that the kink in the back really does begin in a buried emotion, that the body finally moves through a region that has been protected for years. Michael Sudbury's advice to Utah entrepreneurs pursuing work outside the mainstream is direct. Be in it for the love of it, expect a real growth journey, and commit to the obsession that produces success for the community and the family. Reach Michael Sudbury and Release Works at release-works.com. Utah Business Spotlight is produced by INCubator Marketing Agency and filmed in Sandy, Utah.
Key Moments
00:00 The Problem Cannot Be Solved Intellectually · 00:32 Peter Anthony Opens Utah Business Spotlight · 01:19 Where To Find Release Works · 01:38 The Mission Behind Release Works · 02:10 Michael Sudbury's Own Experience Feeling Stuck · 03:24 Why Standard Symptom Relief Was Not Enough · 04:42 Pain Is Not Always A Tight Muscle · 05:24 How Emotions Shape The Body · 06:38 Why The Mind Alone Cannot Solve It · 08:12 The First Step Toward Release · 09:03 The Way Through Anxiety, Anger, And Pain · 10:24 The Release Works Method Of Healing
Notable Quotes
"The problem did not happen on the intellectual level. It cannot be resolved on the intellectual level." — undefined
"A pain or an ache in the body has nothing to do with a tight muscle and everything to do with how you are holding yourself around wounds and injuries of the past." — undefined
"Every emotion has an inherent shape. The body cannot fake what it feels inside." — undefined
"The way out is through. Through the anxiety, through the anger, through the grief, through the pain." — undefined
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Michael Sudbury?
Michael Sudbury is the founder of Release Works, a Utah hands-on healing practice that has spent more than two decades specializing in fascial release, somatic body work, and the release of long held physical and emotional bracing that produces chronic pain, restricted movement, and stuck emotional states.
What is Release Works?
Release Works is Michael Sudbury's Utah practice and proprietary method of healing. Rather than treating pain as a tight muscle, the Release Works method approaches pain as the result of how a person has been holding themselves around past physical, mental, and emotional wounds, and then releases the guarding so the body can heal what it has not been able to heal.
How is the Release Works method different from chiropractic adjustment or massage?
Michael Sudbury describes the work as releases rather than adjustments. A chiropractor forces a bone back into position. The Release Works method instead releases the protective bracing held in the fascia and nervous system, which allows the tissues to unwind, glide, and circulate again so the body restores natural movement on its own.
Does emotional stress really show up in the body?
Yes. Michael Sudbury explains that every emotion has an inherent shape and tension in the body, which is why we can read body language. When stress and emotional wounds stay stuck for years, the fascial system solidifies into the shape of that holding, and muscle, thought, and behavior patterns all orbit the original injury until it is consciously released.
How do I work with Michael Sudbury and Release Works?
Reach Michael Sudbury directly at release-works.com. The website lists current programs, in-person treatment options, practitioner training, and active specials. Michael Sudbury is also published across YouTube, X, and Facebook for clients exploring the work before booking.
About INCubator Marketing Agency
INCubator Marketing Agency is Utah's first AI-integrated marketing infrastructure team, headquartered in Sandy, Utah and serving small businesses, founders, and operators across Utah County, Salt Lake County, and the wider Wasatch Front.
Every engagement is built around the INCubator Method: seven core marketing systems — authority web design, local SEO, CRM and pipeline, marketing automation, AI voice receptionists, video content, and conversion-focused funnels — installed together as one accountable infrastructure so every dollar compounds month over month.
The agency was founded by Peter Anthony Wynn (Founder & Marketing Strategist) with Marc Olsen (Partner & Automation Expert) and Chelsie Wynn. INCubator operates Utah Business Spotlight, a long-form Utah small business podcast filmed at Bad Bet Productions in Sandy, Utah, and hosts Tuesday Night at the INCubator — a weekly marketing training and networking event for Utah business owners.
Contact: team@incubatormarketingagency.com · +1 385-386-6988 · Office hours Monday through Friday, 9 AM to 5 PM Mountain Time.