Myofascial ReleaseAt one point or another, from youth to later years, nearly everyone has the painful experience of a Myofascial Trigger Point (TrP). The severity of the symptoms can range from a painless restriction in your movement that creates dysfunction in your posture (a Latent TrP) to an agonizing and debilitating pain that won't ease up (an Active TrP). This myofascial pain can have two sources. The pain can be generated from the skeletal muscle OR by the connective tissues that are 'bound down' by the tightened and unhealthy fascia. The pain can also be generated from damaged fascial tissue itself, sometimes at a Myofascial TrP.
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So, what is a Trigger Point? A TrP is a hardened, palpable, and highly irritable area in a taut band of muscle fibers and/or fascia. They are characterized by a decrease in your range of motion, exquisite tenderness and pain that refers to another area, sometimes entirely remote from the original source. Occasionally, this referral area will experience other phenomena, such as sensory, motor, and/or autonomic responses. This is because myofascial restrictions can produce tensile pressures of approximately 2,000 pounds per square inch on pain sensitive structures that do not show up in many of the standard tests (x-rays, myelograms, CAT scans, electromyography, etc). That intense pressure influences the connective tissue, blood and lymphatic flow, nerve function and other anatomical structures of various interconnected areas around the body. Not only does it bind them and limit their ability to function properly, but as the cells work harder to keep you functioning, they produce more waste. Once it cuts off its own blood supply and lymphatic flow, which irritates it even more — a vicious cycle called “metabolic crisis" occurs. As these toxins build up in the tissues the pain will become more intense and limiting, and new symptoms may begin to emerge. This includes one TrP causing another TrP, referred to as a Satellite TrP. These Satellite TrP's will not release until the Main TrP is addressed. A collection of too many TrP's is called Myofascial Pain Syndrome (MPS).
The goal of Myofascial Release is to stretch and loosen the unhealthy fascia so that it, and the other contiguous and interpenetrated structures it connects (muscles, blood vessels, organs, bones and other connective tissues), can function with greater ease and less pain. It does this through a technique that involves applying gentle sustained pressure slowly into the Myofascial TrP(s). The essential “time element” has to do with the viscous flow and the piezoelectric phenomenon: a low load (gentle pressure) applied slowly will allow a viscoelastic medium (fascia) to elongate. Then, depending on where the TrP is located, gentle stretching may also be utilized to help your tissues release and restore.
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Myofascial trigger points explained, with animation. -by Michiel Akkerman
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There are several factors we will consider if you have a TrP, specifically the activating factors and the perpetuating factors. An activating factor is the initial activity, stress or trauma which activates a TrP, usually by heightening the stress on a muscle. A perpetuating factor is the continual stress and/or pattern of movement which aggravates the muscle, repeatedly reigniting a Latent TrP, or irritating an Active TrP. Once we figure out any instigating factors, we'll come up with ways to alleviate the stressors. Depending on the area and cause(s), we will also go over some effective therapies you may be able to do at home to help.
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