Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

I suspect a lot of us put up with chronic pain, and thought I'd share  
the tools enabling me to ride relatively pain-free.  My challenge is  
damage to all of the neck ligaments and sacrum in two car accidents,  
so it means muscle groups have to be recruited to help out since the  
neck ligaments are blown.  Of course the whiplashes from various  
horse mishaps have not helped, but no permanent damage from them.   
Used to not be able to ride more than one endurance day in a row/any  
distance.  Now I can do multidays.

I use chiro visits and self-administered "trigger point therapy", the  
instructional book is "The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook" by Clair  
Davies.  I've bought many copies of the book (around $12 on Amazon)  
for friends with various maladies--ranging from IBS, fibromyalgia,  
chronic fatigue, to carpal tunnel even, and it takes little in the  
way of equipment, a tennis ball in a sock and your fingers can do  
it.  (I use Davies' "Theracane" device, $27 online, to hit the more  
remote trigger points with accuracy.)  For years after the 2nd  
accident my chiro visits were no more than 3 weeks apart, then  
finally a month apart, and for the last several months 6 weeks.   
Author Davies was a piano rebuilder/tuner with crippling shoulder  
pain he could find no help for, so he did his homework, discovered  
the one myofascial pain medical text, got trained as a massage  
therapist and translated the medical arcana into this self-help  
manual "for the rest of us".  It has nothing to do with accupuncture  
points, it's all about referred pain.  Like today, I had some aching  
in my rhomboids (between shoulder blade and spine).  Used the  
theracane directly on them unthinkingly, and remembered oh yeah, that  
pain is referred by the scalene muscles in the neck behind the  
"SCMs".  A few minutes on 6 points with my fingers on both sides of  
my neck, and that buzzing pain was gone.  I'll repeat the treatment  
several times over the next day and that should be it.

I'll look up the definition/verbiage...ah, here it is:  "self applied  
trigger point massage works by accomplishing three things: it breaks  
into the chemical and neurological feedback loop that maintains the  
muscle contraction, it increases circulation that has been restricted  
by tthe contracted tissue; and it directly stretches the trigger  
point's knotted muscle fibers. The illustrations in this book show  
you how to find the trigger points that are generating your specific  
problems, as well as the techniques for deactivating them. Special  
attention has been given to designing methods of massage that do no  
damage to hands that may already be in trouble from overuse."

<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1572242507/103-3797622-8963862? 
v=glance&n=283155>

...and now back to photo editing, hope this helps someone.
Lynne





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