Stretching: The Solution to Muscle Pain… or Is It?
Do you have tight, stiff, or painful muscles? You obviously need to stretch more, right?
If something is tight, stiff or painful, we immediately assume it needs to be stretched. Stretching may provide temporary relief for some, but the majority of people do not get results. Unfortunately, stretching is not the answer to all of your problems. In this article, we will talk about two of the major contributors to your tight, stiff, and painful muscles. Read more
Foam rolling is a great way to warm up your body BEFORE exercise. Foam rolling followed by a quick dynamic warm-up is a great way to prepare your body for movement. To learn how to foam roll and perform a dynamic warm-up click the following link: The 6 Characteristics of a Good Dynamic Warm-up by Eric Cressey.
2. Rolling over the greater trochanter.
The greater trochanter is a bony prominence of the femur. If you google it, you can see pictures of it. If you run your hand down the side of your thigh, you will feel a bony bump at the top. When you are rolling the side of your leg avoid rolling over that bump. It can irritate the bursa that is over top of it.
3. Hyperextending low back.
The foam roller is a great way to mobilize your mid back (thoracic spine) into extension. If you go to the 1:35 mark in the following video (Foam rolling Series) you can see how to perform this. You will notice that he doesn’t go near the low back (lumbar spine) when performing this movement. The low back and mid back work differently and hyperextending the low back can irritate it.
4. Using the foam roller on every muscle.
The foam roller works great for most muscles but it doesn’t work that great in the calf area. Try using a massage stick (The stick) instead. Make sure the calf is relaxed in order to get the deep calf muscles as well. Sit down lifting your knee straight toward the ceiling let your foot relax so it points toward the floor and relax as much as possible as you roll/massage your leg.
5. Using the foam roller to treat pain.
Foam rolling shouldn’t be used to treat pain. Foam rolling may reduce or eliminate your pain temporarily but ultimately it only delays you from getting the proper treatment. Proper treatment involves removing adhesion, which the foam roller cannot do. To learn more about this topic click the following link: Can foam rolling remove adhesion?
If you are experiencing pain or have any questions regarding your pain, please click the button below.
Pain is the bodies warning system that something is wrong. If we didn’t have pain, we would slowly destroy our bodies and not even know it.
Unfortunately, we are trained to cover up pain. Americans consume billions of dollars of pain medicine every year. Pain medicine allows us to function when we shouldn’t. It seems like the answer to shoulder, knee, back, elbow, neck, and foot pain is ibuprofen or some other type of pain medicine. This may help in the short term but it sets you up for disaster down the road. Many times pain medicine will allow you to irritated the bad tissue until it tears. This may be why we see such a large number of rotator cuff tears and disc herniations.
Rest, ice, or pain medicine is not the answer to reducing your pain. Muscle adhesion is the most common source of pain and stiffness and the most underdiagnosed. To determine the cause of your pain, click the button below to schedule an appointment.
The goal of spinal decompression is to take the load off of the discs in your low back or neck. This can help take away neck pain, low back pain, and numbness/tingling in your hands and feet. At Muscle and Joint Chiropractic, we treat the adhesions to naturally decompress the spine. Any muscle that crosses a joint will stabilize and compress it. In the neck and low back there are many muscles that cross these joints. If you have adhesion in these muscles, they will increased load and pressure on your discs because the joints are not moving correctly. Breaking down adhesion with ART, MAR, and IAR, will naturally decompress the spine.
The short answer is maybe, but eventually it will catch up with you. I have many patients that come in and say they can usually work through the pain but this time it will not go away. This response indicates to me that they never actually worked through the pain. Their body compensated by loading up another area. Eventually there will be no other areas to compensate to and pain will result. Most of my patients are between the ages of 30-55. This is the common age range when the body runs out of areas to compensate to. One of the most common under diagnosed sources of pain is muscle adhesion. If you have a nagging injury that will not go away or you have been “working through” the pain, please call our office to schedule an exam. This way you will know if adhesion is at the root of your pain.
