CONTROL PAIN AND GET YOUR LIFE BACK

Did you know that tightness in your calf muscle can be a cause of TMJ? Or that shoulder pain can be a result of tension in a thigh muscle? If not, you are about to discover some powerful information that truly can change the way you live your life. I'm going to give you some strategies to help alleviate, and very possibly eliminate, the pain you're now suffering.

 

I want to discuss trigger points. I covered this topic a couple of months back, but it is so prevalent among almost every client I've ever worked with that I feel it bears more attention.

 

What are trigger points? Basically, they are knots or adhesions in our muscles and fascia (picture cellophane wrapping all of our muscles, bones, joints, and everything else inside us) that occur as a result of stresses we've placed on our body. These stresses can be chemical, nutritional, emotional, and/or mechanical. These knots release a chemical called hydroxyproline that causes irritation, sometimes almost paralyzing-like, to our nerves.

We need to reduce or get rid of these trigger points and the pain associated with them. This is done by putting pressure on our muscles. Look back to our first two sentences and note that trigger points in one area can refer pain in another, seemingly unrelated, part of our body. If you have shoulder pain for example, you may have adhesions in your glute (butt) muscles or even just above the knee. Therefore, it may take a little experimenting to find the origin of the pain.

 

Back to applying pressure--you must apply enough pressure to begin to flatten out that knot. If what you're doing looks more like rolling out a pie crust, you won't be very effective. The pressure has to create a level of discomfort, but not to the point where it's so painful that your body tenses up.

 

The tools you need are fairly inexpensive--less than the cost of one visit to a quality massage therapist. We use high-quality foam rollers (about $25), tennis balls ($.75), Lacrosse balls ($2.50), and massage sticks (around $30). You don't need more than this.

To get started, take your device, find a painful spot in a muscle, and apply pressure on that knot from 30 seconds to 2 minutes, then move on to the next one. The crucial take-away here is that frequency trumps duration. You can do your soft tissue work several times a day (start with once or twice and slowly work up to 5-6) if necessary, but don't focus on an area longer than a couple of minutes at a time.

 

And I'll be very honest here--the first time you get into a nasty trigger point, it can be excruciatingly painful. So much so that you may ask yourself whether or not it's worth it. Trust me--it is. That pain means you have an issue that will only get worse, and can easily lead to a serious injury. Don't give up!

 

Once you get rid of a trigger point, it's a good idea to go back to that spot every couple of weeks to see if it's returned. Very often, repetitive movements, lengthy sitting, and the like can cause trigger points to return. This may create compensation movements elsewhere in the body that will result in more pain.

 

I'll leave you with a few final notes:

• If you have pain anywhere in your body, you have a trigger point issue. You have a muscle problem. You have a fascia concern. If you don't address them, your pain will get worse;
• Drink plenty of water after soft tissue work. You are releasing toxins and other gunk back into your body, and they need to be flushed out. Try to drink 3-4 glasses of water within an hour of finishing your therapy;
• If you have more than one trigger point in a muscle, work on the most painful one first. Then move to the next most painful, and so on;
• Stretch the muscle slowly after you work on the knots. Never stretch first as you can make that trigger point even tighter;
• Finally, seek medical advice if your pain doesn't improve, or you feel things are getting worse. You may have a more serious issue at hand.

I can tell you in complete honesty that doing soft tissue work has helped me immensely with how well I move, and the same is true for dozens and dozens of clients I've coached. Don't put this off any longer. Now is the time to take back control of your body and your LIFE!

Move Better. Eat Better. Live Better!


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