Trigger Points Therapy
– What are Trigger Points?
Trigger points are very painful and irritating points in the muscles, which can be found by stronger muscle simulation across the muscle fibre.
Thus, they are a more severe form of muscle stiffness and have a number of specifics. These include, for example:
– without treatment, they can stay in the muscle for years
– they change chemistry in muscles, disrupting chemical balance
– they shorten muscles excessively
– they transmits pain through fascia to other places
– they can cause various autonomous phenomena (from sweating, to salivation, dizziness and problems with balance)
How do trigger points occur?
Trigger Points are created in two ways:
1. directly – with excessive muscle overload
– acute long-term overload, for example, hike, bike ride, dance, long sitting on the plane…
– acute one-time overload, for example, in case of an injury, fall, heavy load lifting, trauma…
2. indirectly – due to pathologies of internal organs or psychosomatics (fears, anxiety, depression, ..)
How to know that there are trigger points in the body?
Trigger points can be most often identified by on and off recurring pains in the same parts of the body, for example in trapezes, between the shoulder blades, in the lower back, neck, head, etc. Trigger points also often cause problems with knees, ankles, hips or shoulders. This is not a clear confirmation but a good indication and a reason to verify such indications.
Trigger points could also be called tricky points, for their trickiness. We can have them in our muscles for years, but they may not be obvious. How is it possible? The following reasons may explain it:
– trigger points are painful after their formation, but after about a week, they become latent trigger points – they are still present but don’t hurt anymore
– transmitted pain – we often feel pain in places other than where the problem itself is located due to transmitting the pain over fascia
– muscles with trigger points are shortened and consequently, other muscles of the muscle group are overloaded. In case of excessive stretching we can create micro-tears in muscles due to the trigger points.
– they will not loosen themselves – trigger points remain in the muscles for years, but hurt only sometimes, especially in times or fatigue, overload or frailty
-with trigger points, we can’t give a full performance – the body is aware of its limitations and won’t permit full performance
The easiest way to find trigger points is with a specialist who knows the problematic and where to touch. One can help herself/himself too, but it takes some time for studying the field and subsequent experiments.
How to release trigger points?
Trigger points can usually be released in three ways:
1. The most common method is release in stretching by controlled pain – that is, we find the trigger point, apply pressure on it so that the pain is at the maximum tolerability level so that the client does not start to defend her-/himself, we hold for a minute while stretching the muscle to the maximum.
2. Hot bath or shower – chemistry in trigger points varies with damp heat. Release can occur if we take a hot bath or shower of the affected body parts and wrap ourselves in a blanket immediately after the bath and lie under a duvet for the time equal to the time of warming. Yet it is important to protect the muscle to the maximum after the entire procedure. It must be understood that this method is not as effective as classical release.
3. Trigger points can also be released by biodynamic massage or craniosacral biodynamics. These are very subtle massages or methods and are suitable for clients who do not tolerate pain or cannot undergo classical treatment for other reasons, such as due to using blood thinners, etc. Again, release takes place differently and it needs to be understood that repeated treatment might be necessary.
When is the trigger point not used?
Trigger points method cannot be used for clients with these limitations.
Varfarizoned klients.