Trigger Point Therapy

A trigger point is a small, contracted knot in the muscle tissue. Often it feels like a partially cooked piece of macaroni, or a small pea buried deep in the muscle. Trigger points affect the muscle by keeping it both tight and weak. They maintain a constant tension on the muscle fibers connected to it, which can produce pain not just in the muscle but also in the joints and ligaments associated with it.

As if that weren't bad enough, these trigger points can also restrict circulation, resulting in an interruption of your body's metabolism. The wasteful by-products of metabolic processes accumulate in the muscle because they can't move themselves through the tightened knot, and in the process the oxygen and nutrients your body needs are blocked from getting to their destinations. Once formed, these trigger points can remain stored in the body for months or even years unless some intervention occurs. Imagine how much damage they can do in that kind of time!

While most treatment of pain is based on the assumption that the cause of pain will be found at the site of pain (seems logical, right?) trigger points are sneaky. They almost always send their pain elsewhere, and the sites of pain are referred to as "messengers" -- letting you know that something, somewhere, isn't quite right. In the case of trigger points it's a good idea to work around the site of pain before actually tackling it directly. It's kind of like a cause and effect theory - it's hard to eliminate the symptoms of a problem without first finding the cause.

Whereas general deep tissue techniques apply to larger areas, trigger point therapy is very precise and focused on these small knots, and involves manipulation and targeted pressure to encourage the muscle to relax and let go. This type of therapy is often used in coordination with deep tissue work in order to eliminate some of the most intense areas of muscle spasm.