Today I’m going to review a great online tutorial about trigger points:
Save Yourself From Trigger Points & Myofascial Pain Syndrome!
The tutorial is the work of Paul Ingraham, a Registered Massage Therapist from Vancouver, Canada. He publishes a large website with many articles and tutorials about common aches, pains and injuries. His writing style is clear and fun, and there’s a strong emphasis on science. In addition to more than 200 free articles on every imaginable topic related to pain problems, the site offers several really detailed tutorials for about $15-20 each, and there are several free sections at the start of each of them.
The trigger points tutorial seems to cover just about every imaginable aspect of trigger point pain. When I found the tutorial, I contacted Paul because I liked his writing style. He seemed like a kindred spirit. He responded immediately, which was nice, and we ended up doing a trade: I gave him some of my tools, and he gave me some of his tutorials. Paul actually recommends some of my own yoga tools in the tutorial. He particularly likes the Zubo! He was kind enough to say some very nice things about my products, so there’s a little tit for tat going on here!
Trigger points (muscle knots) are little patches of dysfunctional, clenching muscle that cause pain, stiffness and some stranger symptoms. According to Paul’s tutorial, they “cause most of the world’s aches and pains” and they are “not a flaky diagnosis, but hard science.” The big idea of the tutorial is that patients can get a surprising amount of bang for their buck by learning something about trigger points and how to treat them. A lot of health care professionals don’t know much about them, but they are fairly treatable and common.
“It’s a perfect storm,” Paul says. “I’ve pretty much devoted my career to educating patients about trigger points because they are such a perfect combination of clinical importance and manageability. It’s this incredible combination of a common problem that you can actually do something about. Knowing something about trigger points is a valuable life skill.”
The thing that really jumps out at me about Paul’s trigger point tutorial is the fairly mind-boggling amount of research he has done. It’s pretty incredible. It’s obvious that he does his homework. It’s obvious that he’s been doing it for many years.
And yet it’s not a boring or academic document. He keeps it surprisingly light and fun while simultaneously explaining a lot of physiology and pathology.
The link to Paul’s tutorial is the Save Yourself site on my blogroll.