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In today’s post I am going to give you a few tips on how to help yourself when you have achy, tender knots in your muscles.

Muscle knots appear in various muscles in the body and are known as trigger points. You can tell if you have one because if you press or squeeze them they can hurt! Often a lot! They can also radiate pain into another part of your body, so you might squeeze your leg muscle but feel a pain in your foot, for example.  Here at Physio and Therapies  they are one of the most common things we find when we assess clients who come for help with a wide range of problems.

When arriving to do my ‘Women’s Health’ elective placement in 2000, I thought I’d observe Pregnancy classes, talk to ladies about bladder care, teach exercises to do after a Hysterectomy, and teach Pelvic Floor exercises.  To my horror, I met my clinical educator for the next 6 weeks… coming out of fracture clinic with a BROKEN right arm!  So I became her right hand, LITERALLY!  That afternoon, she guided me through a vaginal examination of a new mum with weak pelvic floor muscles and leakage after having her baby; rectal Biofeedback on a 25 year old gentlemen who had been in a diving accident which left his anal sphincter weak and we examined a lady with a vaginal prolapse and taught her how to manage it. From then on I was hooked and most of my training since has centred around Pelvic Floor/Continence.

‘Women’s Health’ is now more often called ‘Pelvic Health’, in many hospitals/clinics not only because it is a more accurate description, but in sympathy with the poor men having to hide at the back of the waiting room of the ‘Women’s Health’ clinic!

Somatics – movement education

There is a damaging belief prevalent among fitness fanatics that there is “no gain without pain”. We have been led to believe that you cannot have a good workout until you “feel the burn”, but doctors, physical therapists and bodyworkers tell us a very different story. That pain is, in fact, our body’s natural way of indicating something has gone awry. That pain is a flashing warning light on your body’s dashboard.

Another common misconception which is accepted in most people’s lives is the belief that as you age you will suffer more aches and pains. But what if a lot of those aches and pains are a result of chronically tight muscles?

Many people lump Physiotherapy into the same category as less proven “alternative treatments” and it’s also confused with massage or chiropractic therapy.  But Physiotherapy is different and this is the story of a Physio patient, Susan, in her own words.

“It was the prospect of being forced to give up cooking that made me try Physiotherapy. My hands and wrists had ached ever since I’d binged on note taking by hand and on my computer at college.  My doctor gave me a blood test to rule out arthritis, but she had no idea what to do next. My husband, Andrew, had been urging me for years to try Physiotherapy, but I assumed I had the kind of permanent damage that nothing short of surgery could address. However, I knew that if my hands got much worse, I wouldn’t be able to cook—or make a living as a writer—so I finally made an appointment with a Physiotherapist.