Have you ever felt a hard, tender spot in your muscle that just seemed to not want to go away? This ‘knot’ may even seem like the cause of all your neck or back pain and even with your consistent stretching it doesn’t seem to let you do your work in peace. Massage therapy is commonly used to relieve muscle tension, pain, and to release those persistent knots that are found in tight muscles. Some of these ‘knots’ are known to RMTs as ‘Trigger Points’.
Trigger points are hyper-irritable spots that are usually found in the muscle belly which can often send pain to a different location. They shorten the muscle it is affecting and can cause a decrease in muscle strength and may radiate pain down an arm or up into your head, causing headaches. Most of the time, these ‘knots’ have a specific pain pattern that can make them easy to locate and treat. As a Massage Therapist, treating trigger points can be very affective to relieving muscle pain along with the referral pain and lengthening the muscle so that full strength will return.
If you are feeling ‘knotted up’, book an appointment today to get your muscles worked on!