What To Do For Muscle and Joint Stiffness

Q: I went to see a chiropractor today to get orthopaedic lifts for my shoes, and he gave me a bit of an examination at the same time.

He told me that I was very stiff and I was likely feeling a lot of back pain. Actually I have no back pain but I am very stiff. I have always struggled with flexibility.

These days my upper shoulders and back of my neck are often sore and tight. I have been slowly working on some of the stretches on your website, but this guy wanted me to go see him and he would help me with adjustments, etc., etc.

I'm wondering if I can just rely on stretching (seriously 30 minutes a day) to regain flexibility and deal with these problems instead of actually seeing this guy.

A: Generally, my feeling is that it's best to see what you can accomplish with a regular stretching routine.

In the absence of chronic inflammation or pain from an acute injury, stiffness in the back, shoulder, and neck regions is typically caused by one or both of the following:

• Stiffness within the joints in the area

• Tight muscles

Joint stiffness can cause surrounding muscles to become tight from lack of use, and tight muscles can cause underlying joints to become stiff, also from lack of use. So for practical purposes, in addressing stiffness, it doesn't really matter which one is causing the other; the vast majority of stretches promote joint flexibility and healthy muscle length.

Chiropractic adjustments aim to prevent joint stiffness, typically by delivering a "short amplitude, high velocity" thrust through one of the planes through which the involved joints are designed to move.

Though chiropractic adjustments can be immensely helpful in promoting optimal joint motion, my experience has been that without regular stretching and awareness of daily activities and postures that are at the root of chronic stiffness, adjustments can become a short term fix.

In my opinion, it's better to adopt a lifelong program of stretching to establish and maintain healthy length and blood flow in all major muscle groups, which should help your joints and surrounding ligaments to stay healthy as well.

I would add foam rolling to your stretching routine, as I find it to be an invaluable tool for keeping muscles, ligaments, and the joints they service healthy.

Also keep in mind that beyond stretching and foam rolling, you can likely benefit from some resistance training that promotes a strong core and good body balance. For example, instead of doing conventional push-ups, by doing push-ups with one hand on the ground and one on a medicine ball, you force muscles, ligaments, and proprioceptors (joint receptors that register joint position sense) throughout your body to develop a high level of functional strength. By functional strength, I mean strength that your body can consciously and subconsciously use to stay balanced and be less prone to injury as you go about your daily activities.

Another example of an exercise that promotes good body balance is one-leg squats, where you keep your core strong, balance your weight on one leg, and do slow, controlled squats - even just a few degrees will yield big dividends to your functional core strength and balance.

But not to move too far away from your question, a regular program of stretching and foam rolling is where I would begin - this really needs to be the foundation of your self care program. If you try to do too much with strength and balance-related exercises without ensuring that your muscles are healthy and your joints are moving properly, you might just reinforce faulty patterns of being and moving.

Archive of Stretching and Foam Rolling Posts

After spending a few months taking care of your body, if you feel that you haven't experienced significant improvement and can use some help, that's when I might visit a chiropractor, physiotherapist, kinesiologist, or any other practitioner that specializes in functional movement work. If your stiffness is severe enough that you can't stretch and exercise effectively, then it makes sense to seek treatment from day one.

Find more info at: http://drbenkim.com/what-do-muscle-stiffness

Overuse injury: How to prevent training injuries

Thinking of starting a new physical activity program or ramping up your current training routine? If so, you may be at risk of an overuse injury — which could ultimately prevent you from being active. Find out what can cause an overuse injury and how to safely increase your activity level.

Common causes of overuse injury

An overuse injury is any type of muscle or joint injury, such as tendinitis or a stress fracture, that's caused by repetitive trauma. An overuse injury typically stems from:

• Training errors. Training errors can occur when you enthusiastically take on too much physical activity too quickly. Going too fast, exercising for too long or simply doing too much of one type of activity can strain your muscles and lead to an overuse injury.
• Technique errors. Improper technique can also take its toll on your body. If you use poor form as you do a set of strength training exercises, swing a golf club or throw a baseball, for example, you may overload certain muscles and cause an overuse injury.

Risk factors for overuse injury

Although an overuse injury can happen to anyone, you may be more prone to this type of injury if you have certain medical conditions. Overuse injuries are also more likely to occur as you get older — especially if you don't recognize the impact aging can have on your body and modify your routine accordingly.

For these reasons, it's a good idea to talk to your doctor ((*and health care team)) before starting a new activity or ramping up your current routine. Your doctor may offer tips to help make physical activity safer for you. If you have a muscle weakness in your hip, for example, your doctor may show you exercises to address the problem and prevent knee pain.

Avoiding overuse injury

Most overuse injuries are avoidable. To prevent an overuse injury:

• Use proper form and gear. Whether you're starting a new activity or you've been playing a sport for a long time, consider taking lessons. Using the correct technique is crucial to preventing overuse injuries. Also make sure you wear proper shoes for the activity. Consider replacing your shoes for every 300 miles you walk or run — or at least twice a year if you regularly exercise.
• Pace yourself. If you're starting a new fitness program, avoid becoming a weekend warrior. Compressing your physical activity for the week into two days can lead to an overuse injury. Instead, aim for at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity or 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity — preferably spread throughout the week. It's also a good idea to take time to warm up before physical activity and cool down afterward.
• Gradually increase your activity level. When changing the intensity or duration of a physical activity, do so gradually. For example, if you want to increase the amount of weight you're using while strength training, increase it by no more than 10 percent each week until you reach your new goal.
• Mix up your routine. Instead of focusing on one type of exercise, build variety into your fitness program. Doing a variety of low-impact activities — such as walking, biking, swimming and water jogging — in moderation can help prevent overuse injuries by allowing your body to use different muscle groups. And be sure to do some type of strength training at least twice a week.

Recovering from overuse injury

If you suspect that you have an overuse injury, consult your doctor. He or she will likely ask you to take a break from the activity that caused the injury and recommend medication for any pain and inflammation.

Be sure to tell your doctor if you've recently made changes in your workout technique, intensity, duration, frequency or types of exercises. Identifying the cause of your overuse injury will help you correct the problem and avoid repeating it.

When you think the overuse injury has healed, ask your doctor to check that you've completely regained strength, motion, flexibility and balance before beginning the activity again. When you return to your activity, pay special attention to proper technique to avoid future injuries.

Playing it safe

Don't allow an overuse injury to prevent you from being physically active. By working with your doctor, listening to your body and pacing yourself, you can avoid this common setback and safely increase your activity level.


This article originally appeared on Drugs.com

Are Trigger Points Affecting Your Athletic Performance?

Trigger points cause real problems for athletes.

Not only are trigger points exquisitely painful, but they also affect movement. Trigger points inhibit range of motion by keeping muscles short and stiff. They also weaken muscles, causing them to tire quickly and recover slowly. They produce excessive muscle contraction that can partially disarticulate joints or cause nerve entrapment.

That’s the bad news: Trigger points can seriously inhibit athletic performance. The good news? Acupuncture can help. So can self-care (see tips at the end of this article!).

How does a trigger point form?

A trigger point is a hyper-irritable muscle band with a predictable pattern of pain referral. It forms when the process of muscle contraction and release goes awry.

Muscle overload or trauma causes the muscle band to contract too strongly. Such excessive contracture increases metabolic demand and also squeezes shut the network of capillaries supplying the nutrition and oxygen to the region.

This results in a local energy crisis, perpetuating the cycle of contracture. The muscle band cannot release and a trigger point forms.

Can stretching relieve trigger points?

A muscle harboring a trigger point will be too painful to stretch fully. The pain (and subsequent inhibitory reflex) will prevent you from sufficiently lengthening the muscle band.

What’s more, forcing a stretch will often result in injury (muscle strain) and do nothing to resolve the trigger point.

Think of a trigger point like a knot in a rubber band. Stretching the band will cause it to snap, but it will not release the knot. To restore full stretch to that rubber band, you first need to unwind the knot.

Acupuncture is the most effective way to release trigger points

The acupuncture needle provides a mechanical disruption to the trigger point. It halts the vicious cycle of energy crisis in the muscle. Restored to its full length, the muscle recovers its normal blood supply and metabolism, and it can function fully.

You might be wondering, does having acupuncture on trigger points hurt?

Many release techniques require direct pressure to the trigger point, which is by definition painful. Often a trigger point is too irritable to tolerate much additional mechanical stimulation. But a needle can reach the depth of the trigger point without irritating the hyper-sensitive tissues above or around it. There is simply no other technique that can boast such precision.

And acupuncture achieves immediate results. A single well-placed needle into a trigger point will elicit a twitch followed by reduced muscular tension and increased range of motion. Such immediate feedback is immensely satisfying for someone who has been dealing with pain and dysfunction in that muscle for weeks, months, or even years.

3 self-care tips for preventing trigger points

Increase training loads slowly

Trigger points form due to persistent muscular contraction, strain, or overuse. To prevent their formation, don’t do too much too soon—and make sure you have adequate recovery between workouts. Get enough quality sleep to ensure your body can repair itself efficiently.

Maintain range of motion and muscle balance

This requires some work. Regularly take your body through the opposite range of motion you use in your sport. A good rule of thumb is to lengthen the agonist, and strengthen the antagonist.

For cyclists who spend hours in the saddle with forward shoulder posture, this means increasing range of motion in your pectorals, and strengthening the rhomboids and other muscles of the upper back. Runners typically benefit from lengthening the hip flexors (psoas and quadriceps) and strengthening the hip extensors (glutes and hamstrings).

Break up adhesions

You need to be doing something on a regular basis to normalize tight, overworked muscle tissue.

Supple, flexible muscles don’t get injured. Using a lacrosse ball, a foam roller, or even your fingers, apply direct pressure to a tight muscle band for 8-12 seconds. Taking the muscle through its range of motion while compressing it will break up adhesions before a trigger point forms.

This article originally appeared on Acutake and was written by Ginna Ellis.

The Pull of a Tight Psoas Muscle

The pull of a tight psoas muscle can take many forms and changes considerably as the muscle gets tighter. We’ll start by looking at what a well aligned psoas muscle can do for the body.

The psoas muscle, with the piriformis and gluteus maximus, are the only three muscles in the body that connect the legs to the spine. Together they essentially keep the pelvis and trunk upright on top of the legs. When you have a tight psoas muscle it is often on one side. In many instances both psoas can be tight but most often we are dealing with tightness on one side.

If the psoas muscle is happy it keeps the lumbar spine in its natural curve and allows the muscles of the spine to lengthen up supporting the whole trunk. But lets say that on the left side you have a tight psoas muscle, that leg bone will be pulled up into the hip socket slightly. This accounts for the concept of leg length discrepancy. We all have one leg shorter than the other and this is almost always the result of your tight psoas muscle. In some cases there might actually be a bone size difference, especially in the case of blunt force trauma such as car accidents and such. But for the most part our leg length discrepancy is due to a tight psoas muscle.

The pull of the tight psoas muscle that you can see in the picture above is a fairly classic pattern. I know that at any of my workshops I’ll be able to bring numerous people to the front of the room that exhibit this exact pattern.

And this pattern can be the cause of a many different manifestations of pain. Lower back pain, hip pain, groin pain and the list goes on. Releasing the psoas via exercises and posture work can help you find relief that we often think is no longer available.

When one psoas is tighter than the other, the leg is pulled up into the hip socket on the tight side and since one of the basic functions of the psoas is external rotation, that leg is often turned out more than the other.

In the trunk the image above shows that a tight psoas muscle can shorten the body on the tight side. This tightness manifests by a pulling up on the hip socket and a pulling down on the shoulder drawing the two bony landmarks closer to each other.

This is a little counter-intuitive because you might be thinking that if the right hip is higher the right shoulder should be higher as well but the tight psoas constricts that entire side of the body.

This is just one variation on the pull of a tight psoas. More severe tightness can lead to scoliosis and in extreme cases a hunchback.

Gentle release work that almost anyone can do can help you find relief from so many nagging issues that go undiagnosed and often leave you without any hope of healing because doctors, MRI’s and x-rays often report that seems to be no problem.


Article originally appeared on corewalking.com and is written by Jonathan FitzGordon.