Muscle Therapy and Health

How Muscles Cause Joint Pain

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Preventing & Healing Repetitive Strain Injuries – Part 1

 Author: Julie Donnelly, LMT

 

Quadriceps
Quadriceps

Using the words “pain” and “free” in the same sentence causes people who love to exercise laugh since it seems to be a contradiction of terms, but it is not only possible, it’s easy to achieve. It is understood that exercising, or even just daily living, causes muscles to ache and will also put stress on joints.

When the pain begins you are told to use “RICE” (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation) – but you don’t have the time, or you simply don’t want to rest! So, you keep going and just as you’ve been told, it gets worse, even to the point where you may need to stop your world!

You’ve also come to realize that resting (when you do decide to rest) only lasts for a short time, and then the pain returns. The good news is you can be a pain-free; you just need to know how to find the source of your pain and then how to effectively treat it.

How Muscles Cause Joint Pain

RICE certainly works immediately after having a traumatic injury, but repetitive stress on your muscles requires treatment of the knots that are putting tension onto the tendons and joints.  Getting back to basic anatomy will help to unravel the misconceptions that plague both athletes and non-athletes alike.  Once you understand the logic of why you are feeling pain, you will know exactly what needs to be done to immediately release a muscle-related pain anywhere in your body.

This is NOT going to be a complicated lesson in Anatomy & Physiology, but I’ve found that a little knowledge of the body goes a long way. I’m going to put the proper names for the muscles and tendons into a parenthesis so if you want to actually see the muscles that are causing you pain you’ll be able to look them up.

I always tell the clients I work with “the most challenging part is finding where the source of the pain is located, and then treating it is easy”.  This article will help you to find the source of your problem.  Let’s begin at the beginning…

The Basics – How a Joint Moves

Movement is a simple process:

1. A muscle originates on a bone.

2. It then merges into a tendon.

3. The tendon crosses over the joint to insert into a movable bone.

4. When the muscle contracts it pulls on the tendon.  The tendon then pulls on the moveable bone and your joint moves.

Example: The Muscles of Your Upper Leg

Hamstrings
Hamstrings

All joints have two (or more) muscles that determine the degree and angle that the joint will move.  While one muscle is contracting, the other muscle must relax and stretch. A good example of this principle are the muscles of your upper leg. (quadriceps and hamstrings).

The quadriceps originate on the front of your hip (pelvis), merge into a thick tendon (patella tendon) and cross over the knee cap to insert onto the front of your shinbone (tibia).  When they contract normally you fully extend your leg so it becomes straight. Meanwhile, your hamstrings originate on the lower edge at the back of your pelvis; go down the back of your thigh, with the tendons crossing over the back of your knee and inserting onto the back side/top of the lower leg bone.

Consider this analogy, if you attached your pants to the front of your shinbone, and then pulled up at the waist, you would feel the pressure at your knee and you also wouldn’t be able to bend your knee. Likewise, since your quadriceps originate up at the front of your pelvis and insert into your shinbone, when your quadriceps are tight they can’t stretch and you can’t bend your knee.

For example, to demonstrate an analogy of what tight hamstrings would do, consider what would happen if you bent your leg and then attached your pants to the bottom of your posterior pelvis (the bone you sit on, at the top of your thigh) and the back of your knee, you wouldn’t be able to open your leg up straight.  But, clearly, you don’t have a knee problem, you have tightness in the upper thigh (hamstring) preventing your knee from moving.

When this has happened you begin to feel stiffness and a lack of your full strength. Some therapists will tell you that you need to strengthen your thigh (quadriceps) muscles. You may also think you need to stretch your hamstrings, but stretching a spasm is counter-productive and can actually make the spasm become more complicated while over-stretching the rest of the muscle fiber.

In Part II we’ll look at the first misconception – strengthening the muscle will heal the pain.

Julie Donnelly is an internationally respected muscular therapist specializing in the treatment of chronic pain and sports injuries.  She has co-authored several self-treatment books, including The 15 Minute Back Pain Solution, Treat Yourself to Pain-Free Living  and Carpal Tunnel Syndrome-What You Don’t Know CAN Hurt You.  Julie is also the co-developer of TriggerPoint Yoga. She teaches Julstro self-treatment workshops nationwide and is a frequent presenter at Conventions and Seminars.  Julie may be contacted through her websites: http://www.julstro.com  and http://www.TriggerPointYoga.com.

© Julie Donnelly 2013

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

 

Stop Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Pain Naturally

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Five Stretches That Relieve the Symptoms of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

Author: Julie Donnelly, LMT

Carpal Tunnel SyndromeHave you ever said in a half-joking voice, “I never felt these aches and pains before, I must be getting old?”  You aren’t getting old. You are just experiencing the results of repetitive strain injury to the muscles that you use every day.

When you use a muscle in the same manner over and over it eventually shortens.  However it is still attached to the same place and the now-shorter muscle pulls on the insertion point until it hurts.  The taut muscle can pull so hard that the joint can’t even move freely!

Perhaps you’ve been told that you have bursitis or tendonitis, when the only thing that’s happening is a muscle is pulling hard on a joint.  If the pain is in your wrist or you have numbness in your fingers you may even be told that you have carpal tunnel syndrome, and too often this will lead to unnecessary surgery or a long series of potentially dangerous drugs to stop the pain.

Whether the repetitive strain is caused by your job, your sport, or you simply overuse your hands by doing the same repetitive motion for hours at a time, hand and wrist pain can stop you short!  The pain of repetitive strain injuries can ruin the quality of your life.

Current Treatments for Hand and Wrist Pain and Numbness

Until now the initial treatments for hand and wrist pain and numbness were:

  • Wear a brace
  • Take anti-inflammatory drugs
  • Stop the repetitive motion, even if it is caused by your job
  • Go for hours of physical therapy

If unsuccessful you will be told that you need a surgical procedure that has a 50/50 chance of success and may have serious side effects. Those are not good odds, especially when it means that the negative result could have serious impact on your daily life and may even end your career!

The good news is that 95% of wrist pain and numb fingers is actually caused by tension and small knots in the muscles from your neck and shoulder, all the way down your arm and into your hand.  Release the tight muscles, and the pressure is removed from your nerve and your wrist.

Stop Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Pain Naturally

Five Exercises You Can Do At Home to Prevent Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

  1. Open your fingers up wide, really stretching out your hand and then rotate your wrists in large circles.  You will feel the stretch in your hands and your forearms.
  1. Stretch your forearm muscles by holding your arm straight out, putting your flat hand so it is pointing up, and then taking your opposite hand to pull it back.  Then reverse the movement by bending your wrist so your flat hand is pointing down and using your opposite hand to enhance the bend.
  1. Roll your shoulders in a circle going up and back.
  1. Lean your head back so you are looking at the ceiling, than slightly turn so your cheekbone is facing the ceiling.  Feel the stretch along the side of your neck.
  1. Pull your shoulders all the way down toward the floor while tilting your head to the side.  You’ll get an even better stretch by then slightly turning your head in several directions.

If you stretch your muscles frequently, you’ll be amazed at the relief you will feel.  Plus, you’ll have better flexibility and more strength.

The good news is that you can also learn how to self-treat each of the muscles that cause hand/wrist pain and numbness.  You have excellent options before even considering drugs that have potential dangerous side-effect, or surgery that causes scar tissue in your wrist.  It’s worthwhile to explore all of your options so you can get back to living your life to its fullest – without pain.

© Julie Donnelly 2013

Julie Donnelly, LMT is a recognized authority in repetitive strain and sports injuries, chronic pain, and carpal tunnel syndrome. Author of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome-What You Don’t Know CAN Hurt You and Treat Yourself to Pain-Free Living and a series of Stop Pain FAST! books that focus on separate conditions.

Julie is the developer of the breakthrough consumer product The Julstro Self Treatment System for Repetitive Strain Injuries of the Hand and Wrist. She lectures and teaches self-treatment workshops worldwide.

Visit: http://www.CarpalTunnelResults.com and http://www.julstro.com for more information about repetitive strain injuries.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

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Trigger Point Therapy

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Five Tips For Releasing Trigger Points

Author: Julie Donnelly

Neck PainHave you ever had a pain in one area, rubbed another place on your body, and felt the pain melt away?  If so, you’ve experienced the result of “trigger point therapy.”

A trigger point is technically an area of hyperirritability in a muscle that may refer pain &/or numbness to another area.  In other words, it is a “knot” in the muscle fibers and it prevents muscle fibers from lengthening to their longest length.  The shortened fibers are therefore pulling on the insertion, limiting range of motion, and weakening the entire muscle because these fibers are basically out of commission.

Trigger Points and Stretching

A muscle originates on a bone, crosses over a joint, and inserts onto a bone that will move when the muscle contracts.  This is the way the body moves, and it functions perfectly until a trigger point forms in the muscle.  As the muscle shortens it is pulling on the insertion point and you feel stiff, inflexible.

You may decide to stretch, however, people sometimes complain about feeling worse after stretching than they did before doing the stretch.  To stretch a muscle, while it still has an active trigger point, could cause tiny tears to occur in the fibers, and could cause even more pain.

Consider this analogy.  If you tied a rope onto a strong tree and then went straight across and tied the other end of the rope onto a flexible tree, the smaller tree would continue to stand straight.  If you then tugged on the rope the flexible tree would bend.  However, if you tied a knot, or two, or three, into the rope, the flexible tree would be leaning over.  If you then pushed the bent tree so it was again standing up straight, you would only cause the knot in the rope to tighten, and you would be overstretching the fibers on either side of the knot.

This is exactly what happens when you try to stretch a muscle that is shortened by knots in the fibers, without first releasing the trigger points.

Five Tips For Releasing Trigger Points

As the trigger points caused knots to form in the muscle, the shortening of the fibers put a strain on the insertion point on the other side of the joint.  You can reverse this situation by doing the following steps:

  1. Treat. Hold the pressure on each trigger point.  In order to effectively stretch a muscle you need to first press on each trigger point, holding the pressure for 30-60 seconds.
  1. Understand the Muscle Movement.  Look at the muscle that you will be treating.  To best treat and stretch a trigger point, you need to know what movement the muscle makes.  For example, the muscles in the back of your neck will pull your head back so you can look up at the ceiling, and the muscle on your shoulder blade raises your arm.  To stretch, you need to go in exactly the opposite direction as the movement of the muscle.
  1. Stretch.  Move so the muscle needs to stretch. For example, the trapezius muscle will raise your shoulder, so to stretch it you want to move your head away from your shoulder.  You can accomplish this by dropping your head in the opposite direction while pulling your shoulder down toward the floor.
  1. Press and Stretch for Optimal Benefit.  To optimize the treatment, whenever possible, continue the pressure on the deactivated trigger point and then move your body so the muscle is forced to lengthen.
  1. Slowly Move the Joint in a Smooth Circle.  Slowly rotate your shoulder in a circle, move your leg so your hip joint loosens, curl and open your fingers fully, circle your neck, and arch your back like a cat.  Finally, stop pressing on the trigger points but continue the slow, relaxed movement of your joints.

The more often you limber up your joints, the more flexible you will feel.  Always go only to the point of “this feels great,” never trying to overstretch or make a movement that is beyond your comfort level.  Stretching feels great when you have untied the knots that have held you bound!

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

Heal Your Plantar Fasciitis Naturally

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You Can Make Your Foot Pain Go Away

 Author: Julie Donnelly

Just a couple of weeks ago I taught you how to make your hip pain go away. Today’s topic is foot pain. And, yes, you can make your foot pain go away as well. But, let’s start at the beginning.

How Does Foot Pain Get Started?

You Can Make Your Foot Pain Go Away
Do you suffer from plantar fasciitis?

You feel it coming on gradually. Maybe your lower leg aches a bit, but you’re busy so you ignore it. After a while every time you take a step you feel a burning that spreads along the entire lower leg and into your arch. Still you ignore it.  But it doesn’t go away, in fact, it gets worse.

Now your arch just doesn’t feel “right.”  Then it starts to hurt, but not every time you put pressure on your foot. Again, you ignore it until finally you are experiencing foot pain all the time.   Then eventually you can’t ignore it any more, it’s like a knife being jabbed into your arch. Now it’s not just hurting when you run or drive your car, your foot hurts with every step.

Almost every day you do something that causes you to lift the front of your foot while your heel is still resting on the floor. For most people it comes from straining your lower leg muscles when you are driving a car, especially if you drive often. It is even more evident if you are doing any type of city driving because you are off and on the gas and break constantly, repetitively straining all of your lower leg muscles. You just know that your foot hurts and it’s affecting your life.  You must find a solution!

What is Plantar Fasciitis?

You’ve been told you have plantar fasciitis, and you may have been told you need expensive orthotics.  Perhaps you’ve even tried them and while they worked for a short time, eventually the pain returned and then it started to hurt worse.  Now you’re told you need to replace the orthotics, but you’ve come to realize that isn’t the answer.  And it’s not the answer. The orthotics are focusing on the symptom, but totally ignoring the source of the problem.

The good news is that you can heal your plantar fasciitis naturally. Most people, including too many medical professionals, don’t realize that foot pain is frequently coming from outside the foot. The muscles of your lower leg actually are there to move your ankle and foot, not to move your lower leg (that comes from your upper leg).

The reason is simple. First let’s use an analogy that I use all the time because it’s so perfect to explain how muscles work to move a joint.  If you pull your hair at the end, it hurts at your scalp. You don’t need to massage your scalp, you don’t need to take pain medications to stop the tension in your head, and you certainly don’t need brain surgery, you just need to stop pulling your hair!  Now substitute the muscle for your hand, the tendon for your hair, and the joint for your scalp.

Muscles originate in one place, they merge into a tendon that crosses over a joint, and then the tendon inserts into a point on the other side of the joint.  When the muscle pulls, the tendon tightens and the joint moves, but if the muscle is tight it will continue pulling on the joint even when you don’t want it to move.  In the case of the lower leg muscles and the foot, the muscles are pulling your foot up from the ground, but you are pressing it down and causing the tendons to put a strain on the insertion points, which in this case are all in your arch.

How the Muscles Get Strained

Every time you take a step you are using all of the muscles of your lower leg. As you work you contract these muscles every time you step on the pedal. Lifting the front of your foot up you are using your tibialis anterior and then you press down on the pedal you are using your calf muscles. If you walk a lot, or you are a runner, you are causing a repetitive strain on the same muscle fibers. Also, while driving your car your foot is picked up in the front to go from the gas to the brake, again straining the same muscles. You do this over and over until you have strained the muscle fibers.  Eventually the fibers shorten due to a phenomenon called muscle memory.

Muscle memory will hold your muscles in the shortened position even when you don’t need them contracted. This puts pressure on the insertion point, in this case, the arch.

The Result is Arch Pain

The two primary muscles that cause arch pain are the tibialis anterior and the peroneals.  They originate at the top of the lower leg, merge into tendons where your ankle begins to slim, and then insert into the bottom of your foot.

The tibialis anterior goes along the outside of your shin bone, crosses over the front of your ankle and then inserts into your arch.  When it contracts normally you lift up the inside of your foot so you are resting on the outside of your foot.

The peroneals originate at the top/outside of your lower leg, run down the leg and merge into a tendon that goes behind  the outside of your ankle and inserts in two places; the outside of your foot, and under your arch to the inside of your foot. When it contracts normally you pull up the outside of your foot so you are resting on your big toe.

An Easy Treatment that Works

The goal with this Julstro self-treatment is to force the toxins out of the muscle fibers, drawing in blood to nourish the muscles.  As the blood fills the muscle, the fibers lengthen and the strain is removed from the arch.

Begin by treating the tibialis anterior on the front of your leg.

Foot_Pain_1

 

#1 – kneel on the floor and put a ball just outside of your shin bone.

 

 

Foot_Pain_2

 

#2 – Move your leg forward so the ball rolls along the outside of your shin bone.

 

 

Then treat the peroneals on the outside of your lower leg, sit on the floor with the leg you are treating bent and resting on the floor. Put the ball on the outside of your leg (so it is actually on the floor and your leg is on top of it) and then press the outside of your leg into the ball.  Move your leg so the ball starts to roll down the outside of your lower leg.  Your intention is to do the same as you did for the tibialis anterior (above)

Or, sit on the floor or a bed and position your leg as shown in picture #3. While using either a dowel or a length of PVC pipe, slide the pipe from just above your ankle bone to just below your knee joint.

Foot_Pain_3#3 – Using a dowel or piece of PVC pipe, put pressure on the outside of your leg and slide along the peroneals muscle from your knee to above your ankle bone.

The treatments will feel sore but that’s because you’re forcing H+ ions through the muscle fibers, and acid burns. But, it’s better to have the toxins out of the muscles and fill the fibers with blood, plus the lymphatic system will pick up the toxins and eliminate them from your body.

There are several other treatments that work to eliminate arch pain and plantar fasciitis, but I’ve found these to be the most productive, and they may be all that is necessary to eliminate the problem completely.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

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