Please read the previous post called “Why Muscles Hurt” first.
If you have muscle pain after strenuous activity such as a battle march, and your muscles are fairly healthy, that pain usually disappears. One thing that can help is old-fashioned Epsom Salts.
You can either take a bath with a couple of cups of salts, or soak a towel in a solution of Epsom Salts and wrap it around the muscle. The salts do two things:
1. They help remove lactic acid form the muscle, which is often the root cause of the pain
2. They provide magnesium to the muscle [ by absorption through the skin ]. Magnesium is very important and lack of it can be a reason for muscle pain.
Magnesium/Calcium tablets [ need both substances for maximum effect ] taken for a week or so may help as well. Check with your doc before taking them.
There are two all-natural products which can be applied to muscles and I have found really helped me.
By far the best one I have found is called o24. It is from Switzerland and is used in nearly all Swiss hospitals to treat muscle pain. You only need a few drops and the effects can last for a long time. Many people with fibromyalgia are helped with this stuff.
http://www.024zone.com/
If you check the testimonials page, you can see some videos there.
The next best one I have found is called Bio-Freeze and comes in a roll-on like a deodorant. Many people with shoulder or neck or back pain get relief with this stuff.
None of them are “cures” but can help make life a little more tolerable.
http://www.biofreeze.com/
If muscle pain will not go away after a few days, then see the doc. As well as that massage can often help.
Massage may sound a bit “Girly” but some of the treatments are anything but.
One of the most important things to know is that just because the calf muscle hurts for example, that may not necessarily be the CAUSE of that pain. Tight muscles further up the body can pull and cause pain further down. This is known as referred pain. Assuming the pain in calf, quad etc is actually caused by the muscles there and not somewhere else, Rolfing can very often help.
http://www.rolf.org/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3H_YkCJT64
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCqBQVX3 ... re=related
For some people, it is just too painful, so a more gentle type of massage can be used.
Your muscle fibers are surrounded with a substance called fascia. This can be in a sort of liquid form or a rubbery solid form. Fascia [ also called a type of connective tissue ] is also present covering the muscles [ like the white stuff on chicken breasts ]. Fascia runs the whole length of your body and can be thought of as a “sack”covering all your muscles. The following picture shows some of it:
http://jamieatlas.files.wordpress.com/2 ... _white.jpg
Even if the muscles are stretched properly, if the fascia is too tight, you will never get full range of motion of your arms, legs etc.
I tried it, and was very loose for a while, but became tight again within a few days. However, some other people get permanent results. Bit pricey, but may help some people.
There are a lot of people who work on fascia, and some are called “myofascial relief therapists “. Lot of info when you Google.
I met a chap called Lou Gross some time back. Lou is an amazing guy. Vietnam Vet then worked at the Kennedy Space Centre designing computer systems for the Shuttle program. Got tired of that and went to a Buddhist retreat in California. He learned rolfing there. He uses Ida Rolf’s methods plus some of his own and has treated some Olympic athletes, as well as some other champion atheletes including a British girl, Christina Cahill, a runner.
His website contains contains a LOT of info. However, he is very knowledgeable and can work with people over Skype etc.
http://www.backfixbodywork.com/
If you scroll down on the following page you can see some testimonials.
http://www.backfixbodywork.com/Free_Boo ... ts_Pt1.htm
If you look at the top right of his site, he will give you a free consultation. He can diagnose people’s muscle problems over the phone by getting them to move into certain positions and is really good at it. Maybe worth a try.
A good cheap way to get rid of muscle knots is using the following two devices.
No comments please on the first one. It is a really good piece of kit. Can help some people with fibromyalgia as well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmiO5q6ayr0
The next company make some great products. Can save you a lot of money on therapy:
http://www.tptherapy.com/
I’ll put a separate posting on foot pain later, but they have some good products for Plantar Fasciitis [ a painful sole of the foot condition ]. I had it for quite a while but got rid of mine [ doctor wanted to do surgery on my foot and never looked at WHY the condition had developed ].
I’ll put some info on stretching in another posting. Major cause of muscle pain is lack of stretching or incorrect stretching [ usually too much force ]. I never stretched in my life and it is my biggest regret. It is one of the reasons my disk herniated.
Dave
