Chiropractic doctors and Physical Therapists often use acupuncture needles in something called ?Dry Needling’ to relax muscle groups and engage the body to release tension. It is not acupuncture because they are using muscle-directed work, yet it is often effective.
Acupuncturists use needles to enervate specific organ pathways and acupuncture points based on theories of Chinese Medicine. This is used for more systemic issues – we rarely use needles to just relax a muscle group, because we use different points of the body for that process.