Beyond-Brawn-2nd-Edition

BEYOND BRAWN
The magic of trigger point therapy
The genesis
18.24 In early 1993 John Leschinski urged me to investigate trigger point therapy
(which is also called, among other names, acupressure, myotherapy, pain
erasure, and shiatsu—though the precise techniques of each are not necessarily
the same) in an effort to help my recovery from the injuries. Leschinski,
when a very ignorant youngster, had abused his body with sloppy
exercise form. He was now raving over the help he had received from trigger
point therapy in enabling him to get back into training. It sounded almost
too good to be true and my extreme skepticism, on top of a very heavy work
load, made me procrastinate the investigation.
October 1993
18.25 Nearly six months later, as a result of Leschinski’s persistence, I bought the
superb 350-page book, MYOTHERAPY: BONNIE PRUDDEN’S COMPLETE
GUIDE TO PAIN-FREE LIVING, by Bonnie Prudden, and the most basic
of the wooden hand tools called a “bodo.” I received these in October. e
Prudden book is not the only one on trigger point therapy. It just happened
to be the one I found first. (See page 387 for how to get this book.)
18.26 I read enough of the book in a couple of hours to give me the gist of what it
was about—trigger point therapy. I found it very hard to believe that something
so cheap, non-invasive, non-nutritional and not necessarily needing a
professional practitioner could be so helpful.
18.27 Not only had I never known anything about how to deactivate spasm-causing
trigger points until that time, I had never known that trigger points
even existed. (Trigger points are highly irritable and very tender spots in
muscles.) And despite being so wounded with injuries for well over a year I
was not aware I had such chronic muscle spasms. But once I knew how to
find them, I discovered I was absolutely loaded with trigger points. It was no
wonder I was so plagued with injuries.
18.28 Be prepared for the discovery that you, too, at least in some areas of your
body, are loaded with chronic muscle spasms that are causing you discomfort
and pain. But you can quite easily control the muscle spasms, and thus
control discomfort and pain.
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