What are your favorite Therapy options to loosen up tight, sore muscles/joints?
As a trainer, I have been using Foamrolling for some time now - nearly 5yrs. It’s great for self massage, but does hurt. IT used to take ages, but, as the brain/muscle connection improves, it relaxes off a lot lot quicker these days.
Looking through some of the CF products - charlie demonstrates some great stroking work, which really dopes the tone and allows you to you adjust the overall tension of the muscle, or, find Trigger points within the muscles.
(Trigger points are them, hard painful areas of a muscle, sometimes small, sometimes the size of a Rat…)
To get rid of Trigger points, as a trainer (and depending on the area, on yourself) I utilize the Shaking technique.
I haven’t had this done to me by anybody else, nor seen it on youtube - but have heard vague reports on how to do it in some articles.
I seem to have this down to a good art now. I notice some people cannot loosen up certain areas, eg, hip flexors via Foamrolling, or, it takes them ages to do so.
With this Shaking, i can loosen up the area (hip flexers) in less than one minute per leg. I follow this by some PNF stretching of the effected muscle to bring flexibility into full range of motion. Again, this takes less than One minute per muscle.
The shaking i do - I’ll try to youtube it one day. Hopefully you can understand this - is, Grab The Trigger Point between your fingers (it’s like grabbing a Rat withing the muscle, grab it too lightly, and the rat runs away, Grap too tightly, and the person with the issue Punches you in the head…
So, with the Area grabbed as such, It’s now time to “KILL THE RAT” as if you’re trying to kill a real rat in your fingers. And you do this by shaking the Rat (trigger point) very rapidly. It’s only tiny movements, like brushing your teeth. Eventually the trigger point Melts between you fingers (killing the Rat)
Sometimes it can be very painful (but less than foamrolling) - the more painful, the more you really need to get this muscle fixed. It’s possibly been this way for a long long time.
A lot you cannot Grab as above, so i just use my palm, add pressure, and shake. Not as good - but still works. Just takes longer.
I would like to learn acupuncture - as it works a treat also. But the speed and quickness i’m getting out of shaking is making me think twice (as it’s expensive here)
I have a TENS/EMS unit, works a treat - but programs takes 45-60min.