Worth it, anecdotally. Reading it caused me to try lots of new massage things (itself worthwhile, unclear the book was necessary but it was sufficient). So far 2 of the new things that were directly suggested by the book have been extremely good. One gave a day’s worth of significant right arm pain relief, now repeating it each day. If it’s placebo then at least we know the pain is amenable to placebic attacks. :) The other… is hard to describe but let’s just say people pay a lot more than $20 and some time to get the kind of feeling she did. Recommended to anyone who massages anyone else even kinda regularly. Here’s a free section with some good things to try.
One gave a day’s worth of significant right arm pain relief, now repeating it each day.
A mental model I’ve found useful: think of your trigger point as a bank balance that’s in a deficit state. If you only treat it when it’s painful, and only enough so that it stops being painful, then it may remain in a deficit state indefinitely. If you continue treating it even after it seems better, and you cut down on or stop activities that seem to make it worse for a good while, then you have a chance of eliminating it entirely (or at least bringing it to a much nicer equilibrium state).
It may be good to periodically test activities out on your trigger points to see if you’re making progress though. Another thing about trigger point is they really can be hard to identify, so in addition to finding good habitual massage patterns, you also want to be searching for novel ways to massage under, around, etc. your muscles and in nooks and crannies near your joints and whatnot to see what you discover. You might also find it interesting to massage a muscle while it’s not being flexed and someone else slowly moves it through its range of motion.
I have a lot to say about trigger points if people want to read it.
Worth it, anecdotally. Reading it caused me to try lots of new massage things (itself worthwhile, unclear the book was necessary but it was sufficient). So far 2 of the new things that were directly suggested by the book have been extremely good. One gave a day’s worth of significant right arm pain relief, now repeating it each day. If it’s placebo then at least we know the pain is amenable to placebic attacks. :) The other… is hard to describe but let’s just say people pay a lot more than $20 and some time to get the kind of feeling she did. Recommended to anyone who massages anyone else even kinda regularly. Here’s a free section with some good things to try.
Cool.
A mental model I’ve found useful: think of your trigger point as a bank balance that’s in a deficit state. If you only treat it when it’s painful, and only enough so that it stops being painful, then it may remain in a deficit state indefinitely. If you continue treating it even after it seems better, and you cut down on or stop activities that seem to make it worse for a good while, then you have a chance of eliminating it entirely (or at least bringing it to a much nicer equilibrium state).
It may be good to periodically test activities out on your trigger points to see if you’re making progress though. Another thing about trigger point is they really can be hard to identify, so in addition to finding good habitual massage patterns, you also want to be searching for novel ways to massage under, around, etc. your muscles and in nooks and crannies near your joints and whatnot to see what you discover. You might also find it interesting to massage a muscle while it’s not being flexed and someone else slowly moves it through its range of motion.
I have a lot to say about trigger points if people want to read it.