How to Deal With Recurring Night Spasms and Maintenance Between Massages

A common complaint I hear from my clients is that they can't get through a night of sleep without a tight muscle waking them up.

 

Often it is a foot, calf, shoulder or neck muscle that is the culprit. 

After waking up and moving around throughout the day, the pain goes away only to return during the night just like it did the night before.

This can have a dramatic impact on the health of the individual for obvious reasons. 

Lack of healing and recuperative sleep can have many side effects: 

Diminished cognitive function, lowered immunity to illness, susceptibility to injury and ultimately depression, just to name a few.

Here is a list of tools for combating night spasms but useful as well for general maintenance. 

Click on any of the links to order these products online and have them shipped straight to your doorstep. Click on the tutorials to grasp a better understanding of how these products work.

 Then make sure you schedule a massage!

1. Heating Pad: The heating pad is wonderful for the back and legs but can be a bit awkward for the neck or feet.

 

The goal is to increase blood flow because the affected area has tightened up and restricted this.

 

My recommendation is to heat your trouble spot for at least 20 minutes before falling asleep.

 

Another useful option is if you are to wake up at night with your issue agitated, try using the heating pad to calm the area, allowing you to return to sleep.

 

2. FROZEN/ROUND 16 oz. water bottles: This is an amazing tool for calming an overused or slightly injured muscle. 

The key is to not overly agitate the affected area. 

If the spot is in the hips or the IT Band the technique is to place the bottle on the floor and roll over it with your body weight. 

The cold allows inflammation to be reduced and numb the active nerves while simultaneously rolling out knots or trigger points (see previous blogs on these subjects). 

The bottles can also be rolled like a baker's rolling pin on the quadriceps. 

Ice packs or frozen bags of vegetables are better options on other areas. Stop when numbness is achieved or it becomes uncomfortable. 

An option as a final step is to immediately place the heating pad on the rolled out area. Special healing properties are achieved with this action.

 Rotating between hot and cold several times can be especially beneficial.

3. Hot Water Bottle: As with the heating pad but a better option for the neck or feet.

4. Yoga Foam Roller: Here's a great tutorial. Foam Roller tutorial

5. Trigger Point Balls: These work really well for specific issues. With a little practice you can really find and release problematic areas. TP Ball tutorial

 6. Thera Cane: An excellent tool for maintenance or when an area becomes achy. Here is a good tutorial on how to use one. How to use a Thera Cane

7. Tens Unit: Tens units are usually by prescription only. Prescriptions are very easy to obtain from your family doctor. Tens Unit training video

Optional is the microwaveable rice or corn filled neck pads that are commonly used but I don't recommend using microwaves for anything, especially heating food.

Access to a hot tub or a hot epsom salt and baking soda bath soak can be very beneficial periodically. Salt and Soda bath explained

Some of these items or gadgets can be found in your local drug store. Trigger Point Balls and foam rollers can often be found in a local jogging shoe store or any business that caters to athletes. You might want to check out the products yourself and talk to a sales representative. 

Check out Fleet Feet, Chico CA

Russell Hallock

http://russellhallock.massagetherapy.com

Massage For Athletes: Important for Health and Performance

I've massaged a lot of athletes; runners, swimmers, soccer players, bicyclists, dancers, body builders, and so on.

Most of them have been very dedicated to their workout routine: 5, 6 even 7 days a week. 5 miles of running a day for a moderately serious runner. 2 hours a day (or more) for the serious body builder in the gym. 5 days a week for a swimmer at 4 hours a pop.

When anybody works out that hard, their body gets TIGHT and sore. Muscles and their attachments get knotted up. Blood flow is restricted and muscles are no longer able to perform at their peak levels because oxygen and nutrients are inefficiently being supplied to the soft tissue.

Not to mention the metabolic waste that isn't properly flushed. Now the body becomes susceptible to pain and injury.

When we workout hard, we're breaking down the muscles so we can build them back up and make them stronger.

When a specific muscle or muscle group gets overly tightened or fatigued it can create 'hitches' in a runner's gait. Suddenly a bicyclist's back gets very sore because his hamstrings are too tight. Feet, calves, shoulders and necks can all fall prey to improper body mechanics.

Question: Why put all of these grueling hours into a workout routine and a strict diet plan only to have a set back because of pain or injury? 

Chronic soreness is a serious issue. Not much fun as I'm sure most athletes can attest to. Tylenol is a quick fix. Yoga is great. Hot tubs are wonderful.

But massage can alleviate, even eliminate a lot of these issues.

Take note of a professional athlete's routine; all of these guys have a team of trainers and specialists making sure nothing gets too out-of-whack when it comes to their multi-million dollar investments. Olympic athletes, MMA, rockstars; most get massaged. I even know a few firefighters, teachers and office warriors that recognize how important massage is to maintain their health and livelihoods.

The rest of us should be no different. I recommend a minimum of one massage a month for even the most casual weekend warrior.

If your gearing up for a marathon or the big bike race, give back to the body that you demand so much of. In the long run (pun intended) it will always pay off.

Keep in mind that not just any old massage will do. Seek out a specialist that knows how to focus on the areas with issues by having the right techniques to address what virtually all athletes battle.

Russell Hallock

http://russellhallock.massagetherapy.com

Postural Analysis

Remember your mom telling you to stand up straight and 
quit slouching? Mom was right. We now live in a society where a large portion of the population sits in front of a computer monitor, spends too much time behind the wheel of a car or carries around an old injury that was never correctly rehabbed, e.g. an old football injury or skiing accident. Bad posture can also be genetic.

Life long habits of improper posture create 'postural distortions' and in the long run can cause debilitating and agonizing pain. Eventually, over time, everyone develops an issue, no matter how major or minor. When this occurs, 
the body compensates by developing the muscles to counteract the distortion. This could happen to a woman just from carrying around a growing baby for years in the same arm. My advice: alternate arms whenever possible.

Look in the mirror. Does one shoulder sit higher than the other? Take note of your pelvis. Is it rotated to the right or left or tilted at an angle? An obvious effect of this can be one leg being longer than the other. When you observe your self from the side, are your shoulders rounded? Do your ears sit over your shoulders or are they forward of them?

Injured and overworked muscles in the legs can actually tighten and pull the pelvis out of alignment, wreaking all kinds of havoc on typical areas such as the back, knees and feet.

At the very least, massage can help most people find relief from the effects of theses conditions. But in conjunction with consistent work, proper adjustments by a professional chiropractor or physical therapist, exercise and stretching (like yoga) a lot of theses conditions can be reversed.

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