It would be worth looking at a couple of chapters on the soft-tissue healing process in any Cyriax books - Cyriax and Cyriax (1990ish) or Kesson and Atkins (2002ish) - as background reading and even to find some relevant references.

There are also a couple of interesting articles by Glenn Hunter on the topic of Specific Soft-Tissue Mobilisation (SSTM) techniques, which gives another good account of soft-tissue healing and the rationale for progressive laoding of healing soft-tissue.