Conquering Chronic Pain From in the comfort of your own home.

Posted on 24. Feb, 2010 by Keith Scott in Back to Health

We all have physical pain at one time or another. Hell, many of us have pain everyday of our lives and we just learn to deal with it.

Traditionally, people pop Advil, Aleve, or other over the counter meds to manage their pain and leave it at that.

Most people learn to “accept” the pain as normal and learn to just “deal with it.”

I deal with these people everyday and have for the last 18 years of my career. “Keith, my knee hurts.” “Keith, my back hurts” “Keith, my shoulder is killing me.” This goes on and on and on.

There are Band-Aid approaches to dealing with these things and there are things you can do to actually take care of the problem and not just the symptoms.

What I have found over the years is that when you become injured or have a physical issue, your body will do everything in its power to “heal” itself and make things better, normal.

To do this, your body will shut down certain areas to help the healing along. Swelling, pain, muscle spasms, knots, cramps, and stiffness are all techniques that your body will use to “turn off” muscle groups, limit range of motion and stop you from injuring yourself even more while it does it healing magic.

This is all a good thing. This is how your body ensures that you won’t do anything stupid and injure yourself even more.

The problem, however, is that the mechanisms the body uses to shut things down, do not always shut off when it is time to get back to normal. In other words, those knots, and spasms remain…sometimes for many years…and they can cause major dysfunction and pain.

Scar tissue is often formed from injury and in most cases, it is never really dealt with. Scar tissue can form and limit range of motion and cause all kinds of issues. Again, this is something that can pain and problems.

So, what is the answer in dealing with these kinds of issues and eliminating these painful conditions? There are many ways to deal with pain, dysfunction, and physical issues. A lot of it depends on what the actual issue is, and that will tell you how to deal with it.

I have taken a slightly different approach over the years and it has been a very successful one.

No matter what the issue is, chances are you have soft-tissue problems. Scar tissue, knots, spasms, stiffness, and connective tissue adhesions are almost always present in one form or another.

I have found that in most people, dealing directly with these soft-tissue problems can reduce pain dramatically, improve physical function, and get people back on track for normalcy.

I have also taught people how to deal with these knots, spasms and adhesions on their own…in the gym or the comfort of their own home.

Here are a few things to do, to start ridding yourself of that chronic pain and dysfunction:

• Get yourself a foam roller. Foam rollers can be purchased on the internet for under $20.00 and are worth every penny. Foam rollers come in a few different shapes and sizes. Made from a dense piece of cylindrical foam, you can usually purchase foam rollers in 1 foot or 3 foot lengths. Most round rollers are 6 inches around.

• Foam rolling is much like getting a deep tissue massage. The only difference is that YOU control the massage and it won’t cost you 50 plus bucks each time you use it. Foam rolling is much more than a massage too.

• Foam rolling, to be technical, is a form of self-myofascial release (SMR). SMR helps the muscle to relax and this in turn can help rid the area of the unwanted scaring, knots, and ugly adhesions.

• Foam rolling is simple to learn and with practice, you can set up a routine for your whole body within a short period. At the very least, you will be able to roll your trouble spots each day with no difficulty

Bottom line: If you want to feel better, move better, function at a higher level…get a foam roller. Learn to use it, and use it! You wont be sorry.

Stay tuned. I will be posting some more foam rolling videos in the future.