The easy way to release trigger points in your low back

Trigger point therapy vs trigger point release

Trigger point therapy and trigger point release are practically the same thing so the terms get used interchangeably. The official name for these trigger points is myofascial trigger points.

Treating your low back pain

Although trigger points are an important cause of back pain and treating them should be part of most back pain care there are other important issues. Because of that please consider this as for general information and seek advice from a professional who can properly examine and assess you. Please see this article for further information on causes of back pain.

The basic technique to release your trigger points

CONTENTS

• Introduction
• How to find your trigger points
• How to do the technique

Introduction

The way you will usually get shown to treat trigger points is by applying pressure and waiting for the pain to fade and the muscle to relax. In the low back this is often done using a tool such as a cane, ball or roller. It is painful, involves getting into difficult positions, and you can easily hurt yourself doing them. It is far easier, safer and more effective to release trigger points in your low back using a vibration massager. Instead of pressing in, the head of a vibration massager is placed over the trigger point, allowing the vibrations to penetrate. There are huge advantages in using the vibrations to penetrate rather than the typical way of pressing in with your thumb, a ball or a roller. Lets look at these.

How to find your trigger points

The examination technique

Start with a general examination

Start by using the flats of your fingers using moderate pressure to examine your calf muscles looking for areas of general tenderness or tightness. Work systematically to cover all of the muscles.

Deeper examination

When you find an area of tightness or tenderness use the tips of one or two fingers to examine your muscle more deeply looking for tight bands of muscle with a tender lump that shoots pain when you press on it. Those tender lumps will be the trigger points, and the pain caused when pressing on them will likely match the pain shown in the pics in the section on individual muscles.

The even easier alternative

The vibrations spread out from the massager head so everything below the head is “soaked” with therapeutic vibrations. All you need to do is place the head over the area. If you use our Ultimate Quad Head Massager it has four powerful vibration heads that can treat multiple trigger points over a larger area.

How to apply the therapy

How to apply trigger point therapy to your low back and "backside" muscles

The best way to show you these techniques is by using a video. Here we will show you where the muscles are and the common trigger points, the common symptoms, and how to apply the trigger point therapy.

Video contents

• The basic technique
• applying the technique to individual muscles
• hints for better results

List of muscles:

1. The paraspinal muscles
2. Quadratus Lumborum
3. Iliopsoas
4. Gluteal muscles
5. The small muscles of the spine

some hints and advice to help you get the best possible results

So, that’s the simple way of treating release trigger points in your low back. I think you’ll agree that it’s a lot easier and nicer than using painful pressure or getting into some awkward position with a ball or roller. What I’d like to do now is quickly go over a few things help you stay safe and get the best possible results. Keep in mind though that I can only give specific advice to my own patients, so consider this as general information only.

Do you want great long term results, or just temporary relief?

The next thing we’ll go over is whether you want great long term results, or just a bit of temporary relief. I mentioned before that if you use a pressure technique the problem will almost always come back. It’s the same if you get needles or laser. The main issue is that trigger point therapies and releases initially just quieten the trigger points down a bit so they’re not hurting, which means they’re still there and eventually start hurting again. To get rid of trigger points completely scientific trials show that after the pain goes you need to keep treating them, maybe even be 50 or 100 times. We discuss this in detail in our artice Why do trigger points keep coming back

Avoid percussion massagers (massage guns) and their techniques

The next thing you need to do is to avoid percussion massagers or massage guns, and the techniques their advocates show you. I’ll share with you why. What percussion massagers or massage gun makers have done is modify vibration massagers to make a marketing gimmick that’s a lot less effective and a lot more dangerous. The easiest way to explain it is to use the analogy of a construction compactor vs a jackhammer.

Reduced effectiveness and reduced penetration

Remember it’s the vibrations that do the work. Jack hammers don’t vibrate the ground anywhere near as much as a compactor so percussion massagers are far less effective. The percussion marketers claim that driving their heads in like jackhammers gives better penetration, but if you look at those two machines the jackhammer head goes in a bit, while the vibrations from the compactor are probably still doing their work a meter or two down.

The "percussion massage" technique

So that’s the machines themselves. I also said the percussion massage technique. Vibration massagers are power tools, and just like most power tools they work best if you just let them do their job. You just sit the machine on and let the vibrations penetrate. If you try and move it around like a convention massage you’re not letting the vibrations soak in, so it will be a lot less effective. However, the marketing gimmick of percussion massagers is that they combine conventional massage with vibrations so that’s exactly what they tell you to do.

Percussion massagers are very poor at delivering therapeutic vibrations anyway so it probably doesn’t matter with them, but I don’t want to see you following their recommendations with a decent vibration massager.

How to get a decent massager

So, how do you find a decent massager. This article discusses what to look for, but they’re not that common though. Most of the massagers on the market are either ineffective consumer consumers, massage guns or both. That’s why a while back to get something decent for our patients we built our own, which are the two machines I’ve used here and in the video.