Why do trigger points keep coming back
The main reasons trigger points keep coming back is because courses of trigger point therapy are only designed to temporarily relieve... Read Article
The easy way to release trigger points in your low back
Trigger points in your low back and buttock muscles can cause a great deal of pain and disability, and can even shoot pain down your leg mimicking sciatica. It’s great to be able to treat these yourself, but the way you usually get shown is painful, hard to do, and if you’ve had any experience with those techniques before you’ll know that the problem practically always come back again.
In this article we’ll show you a much simpler way to treat or release your back muscle trigger points that’s pain free and highly effective.
The way we’ll do this is:
The basic technique to release your trigger points
- Introduction
- How to find your trigger points
- How to do the technique
Introduction
”Conventional” techniques are ineffective
The way you will usually get shown to treat trigger points is by applying pressure and waiting for the pain to fade and the muscle to relax. In the low back this is often done using a tool such as a cane, ball or roller. It is painful, involves getting into difficult positions, and you can easily hurt yourself doing them.
Vibration massage is easy, effective and pain free
It is far easier, safer and more effective to release trigger points in your low back using a vibration massager. Instead of pressing in, the head of a vibration massager is placed over the trigger point, allowing the vibrations to penetrate. There are huge advantages in using the vibrations to penetrate rather than the typical way of pressing in with your thumb, a ball or a roller. Lets look at these.
Vibration massage is highly effective
As discussed in our article What is the best treatment for trigger points the vibrations penetrate and are scientifically proven to do all the main things needed to treat a trigger point
Vibration massage penetrates better
The vibrations are able to easily penetrate deeply to even the deep, hard to get at trigger points. This diagram shows a very important example. A lot of the very important muscles of the spine sit deep around the spine protected by bony levers. Conventional massage and pressure trigger point releases cannot get to these muscles, while vibrations easily do.
There is no pain and little risk
Because you are not physically pressing in there’s also usually no pain, no risk of causing damage, and no risk of pressing on something sensitive like a nerve or a blood vessel.
Vibration massage is extremely easy
Best of all you don’t need any special skills to do vibration massage. As we will show you, basically you just sit the machine on and let it do the work. You don’t even need to find the spot exactly. As long as the trigger point is somewhere under the head of the machine the vibrations will find it for you.
How to find your trigger points
- Where to look
- The examination technique
- Video demonstration
Where to look
In this article we list all the important muscles for back pain, along with diagrams like this for each showing common trigger points and where they refer pain. The other good way is when you see a professional have him or her show you where all the important trigger points are.
The examination technique
Start with a general examination
Start by using the flats of your fingers using moderate pressure to examine your calf muscles looking for areas of general tenderness or tightness. Work systematically to cover all of the muscles.
Deeper examination
When you find an area of tightness or tenderness use the tips of one or two fingers to examine your muscle more deeply looking for tight bands of muscle with a tender lump that shoots pain when you press on it. Those tender lumps will be the trigger points, and the pain caused when pressing on them will likely match the pain shown in the pics in the section on individual muscles.
The even easier alternative
After you have been using a vibration massager for a while you will be able to feel when the vibrations reach a trigger point (and the trigger points relax as they are treated). You will be able to slowly move the head of the massager over each muscle. When you feel the vibrations find a trigger points stop the machine for approx. 30-60 seconds while you feel the trigger point relax, then continue.
Video demonstration on how to find trigger points
How to apply vibration massage to your low back muscles
- How to apply vibration massage
- Applying vibration massage to your low back
How to apply vibration massage
We have a few simple hints and precautions in our Vibration massage usage guide , but basically once you’ve found the spot all you do then is sit the head of the machine on for about 30-60 seconds and let the vibrations penetrate.
Applying vibration massage to your low back
Please also check out the video demonstration below. We also have an excellent article showing all the muscles, trigger points and techniques .
Video demonstration
Some hints and advice to help you get the best possible results
Do you want great long term results, or just temporary relief?
If you have had trigger point therapy for low back pain before you will have likely found that the pain came back again. This is because whether it is a pressure technique, needles, laser or even vibration massage trigger point therapies tend to just quieten the trigger points down so they do not hurt, but they are still there. This means of course that as soon as they are re-aggravated they start hurting again.
To rid trigger points completely
To rid trigger points completely you need:
- correct long term management, and
- to continue therapy for long after the pain goes away.
A huge advantage of vibration massage is that with the proper equipment you can easily do yourself, making it inexpensive and convenient to get the prolonged care you need. For more information on care to eliminate trigger points please see our trigger point therapy guide .
Choosing the proper equipment
While there are a lot of vibrating massagers on the market very few are able to deliver the serious amounts of therapeutic standard vibrations need to effectively treat trigger points. This is why when looking for something for our Chiropractic patients to use we built our own . For more information please see our article How to choose a massager . However, you will need to avoid the following.
Massage guns (percussion massagers)
Massage guns are designed to physically jackhammer your muscles rather than send in therapeutic vibrations. Because of this they:
- deliver far less vibrations,
- the vibrations are not at the best therapeutic frequency, and
- they can easily cause damage and injury.
Despite this, as this video shows massage gun marketers act deceptively and misrepresent the facts to mislead people that they are a good idea.
”Consumer” massagers
The market is flooded with massagers built by factories that have absolutely no interest in building serious therapeutic devices. As an example, our factory send me this machine to look at. Like most similar machines it came with cheap plastic gimmick shaped heads that are next to useless so I glued on a decent head from one of our massagers. When you use it though it feels like it’s not doing much and you need to press in to help it. That’s because it has got a low powered motor and it’s head doesn’t go up and down anywhere the amount a proper therapeutic device does.
Complete care for your low back pain
Although trigger points are an important cause of back pain and treating them should be part of most back pain care, there are other important issues. Because of that please consider this as for general information and seek advice from a professional who can properly examine and assess you. Please see this article on the cause of back pain for further information.
Professionals
DrGraeme massagers were originally built by Dr Graeme for use in his clinic, and to prescribe to his patients for additional self use at home. Now these are used by colleagues and other professionals for similar purposes. If you are a professional and wish to know more about this therapy, or possibly get a sample massager to trial please check out our practitioner page.
We are continually adding more information on research and uses. Subscribe below to have us email them to you "hot off the press".
About Dr Graeme
Several years ago Dr Graeme, a Chiropractor practicing in Victoria, Australia was looking for a serious hand held massager his patients could use at home to get the extra quality massage they needed. The ones he found in the shops and on-line for home use looked nice but were not serious, and... read more
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