The easy way to release trigger points in your low back

Massaging buttocks with foam roller — There is a much easier, safer, and more effective way to release your trigger points

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 and 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:

show you how to examine for trigger points and do the basic techniques,
show how to apply these to your low back muscles, then
give you some hints and advice to help you get the best possible results.

The basic examination and treatment technique techniques

In this section:

Introduction (what are trigger points)
How to find your trigger points
How to do the technique

Trigger point chart — Chart showing where the various trigger points refer pain to

Introduction (What are trigger points)

Trigger points are those tender lumps in your muscles that shoot pain when therapists press on them. They are a very important cause of back pain, along with a host of other musculoskeletal pain syndromes.

It is important to note that trigger points start small and gradually grow. In their early stages they cause issues such as muscle tightness, fatigue and impaired abilities, but will only cause pain if pressed upon. As they develop they may get to the stage where they cause pain without needing to do anything.

For more information please see: Your Complete Guide To (Myofascial) Trigger Points .

How to find your trigger points

Where to look
The examination techniques
Video demonstration

Quadratus Lumborum muscle with trigger points — Quadratus Lumborum muscle with (myofascial) trigger points

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 techniques

Technique one: examination by hand

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.

Technique two: let your massager find them

After you have been using a vibration massager (discussed next section) for a while you will be able to feel when the vibrations reach a trigger point. You will also feel the trigger points relax as they are treated.

Using this you are able to slowly and systematically move the head of the massager over each muscle. When you feel the vibrations “find” a trigger point stop and do the treatment. After you have felt the trigger point relax continue to find the next one.

Video demonstration on how to find trigger points

The basic trigger point treatment technique

The technique we will show you is using vibration massage. This is safe, easy to do yourself, and highly effective. By comparison the techniques commonly shown such as using a cane, ball or roller are not very effective, can be painful, and you can easily hurt yourself doing them.

In this section:

The basic technique
The equipment you will need
Why vibration massage is so effective

Applying vibration massage — To apply vibration massage you simply sit a therapeutic vibration massager over th trigger point and allow the vibrations to penetrate

The basic technique

We have a guide with the precautions and how to maximise effectiveness , but basically all you need to do is place the vibrating head or pad of a therapeutic vibration massage over the trigger point for approximately 30 seconds.

What you will do is:

find the trigger point
place the massager over the trigger point for about 30 seconds
re-check to make sure the trigger point has improved.

Later in this guide we will:

Show how to do this for each muscle
Have a video demonstration showing a complete examination and treatment of all the muscles

The equipment you will need

Vibration massage is by far the easiest and most effective therapy but you will need a proper vibration massager. As discussed in our guide Why most massagers are a waste of money , most of the vibrating massagers you can buy are not suitable.

Genuine vibration massagers deliver far more effective therapeutic vibrations, without the negatives of a massage gun

What you will need

As this example of a professional vibration massager shows, vibration massagers have a head or pad that sits on the surface and sends in therapeutic vibrations. These penetrate like ultrasound (vibrations at a different frequency), and are at the correct frequency for the therapeutic effects. If you use one you will feel the vibrations going "right through you" and having a relaxing effect on your muscles. You will need a personal use version.

What you don't need

Example consumer massager — Example: "consumer" massager with decent quality head added

"Consumer" massagers

Most vibrating massagers built for consumer use are built to look good on shop shelves rather than be serious therapeutic devices. These usually have low powered motors and inadequate mechanisms, so are not capable of delivering adequate vibration.

Massage guns (percussion massagers)

Rather than having a pad that sits on the surface and sending in vibrations massage guns are designed to drive their heads in like jackhammers. Because of this they:

Deliver far less vibration than a proper vibration massager
They cannot safely and comfortably be run at the therapeutic vibration frequencies (for more info see The best setting for your massager )
they usually do more harm than good, with even reports of them causing life threatening injuries (for more info see Are massage guns safe )

Video: Are massage guns scientifically proven, or even safe?

Vibration massagers for personal use

When we were looking for a suitable vibration massager for our patients to use all the effective machines seemed to be "professional" products for therapists to use. These were expensive and not designed for self use. Because of this we built our own that pack the effectiveness of a professional unit into an economical one for self use. They are now used, recommended and sold by over a thousand clinics across half the world (some examples). For information about these and where to get them please use these links.
The General Purpose Massager
The Ultimate Quad Head Massager
Read what professionals say about DrGraeme massagers

Why vibration massage is so effective

Vibration massage uses therapeutic vibrations rather than physical pressure to penetrate and treat trigger points. This has a host of advantages.

Vibration trigger point therapy — Vibrations are scientifically proven to do all the main things needed to treat a trigger point

Therapeutic vibrations are highly effective

Trigger points involve muscle spasm, tightness, restricted blood flow and a build up of toxic waste products. As shown in this diagram therapeutic vibrations are scientifically proven to help all of these. For more info please see The best treatment for trigger points .

Vibration massage used on intrinsic muscles of the spine

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. 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 treat the specific muscles

We have an excellent guide showing all the muscles plus where to find the trigger points and specific techniques for each. Please see: Massage and trigger point therapy for back pain .
Please see our video demonstration below.
Download our .pdf quick reference .

Video demonstration

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.

The main things you need to get good long term results are:

complete care for your low back
Continue therapy for long after the pain goes away.

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.

Trigger point needling — Trigger point therapies need to be continued for long after the pain goes

Continue therapy for long after the pain goes away

Trigger points are long term changes to your muscles. Most courses of treatment just shrink them slightly and (temporarily) stop them hurting. To rid them completely you need to keep treating them for a much longer period of time: for long after the pain goes away.
Expense and inconvenience makes this doing this with professional help alone highly prohibitive, but is much more feasible using the techniques shown in this guide. For more information on care to eliminate trigger points please see our trigger point therapy guide .

Professional at desk — Professionals: click the image to find out more and possibly trial vibration massage

Try this therapy with a sample massager (professionals only)

Most of our massagers sell through colleagues using our machines and recommending the therapy to patients/clients, so we are very happy to send appropriately qualified professionals a complimentary sample machine to trial. For more info please see our Professional sample sample page .