What are Trigger Points?

Have you ever had a charlie horse or a muscle cramp?
If you have, then you know that they can be excruciatingly painful, and the pain can radiate over large regions of your body.

Although not precisely the same, I find it helpful to tell people that trigger points are like micro-charlie horses. Imagine that many of the muscles in you body have tiny little cramps in them. Under normal circumstances, you may not even notice these little cramps, but if you ever press on one the pain will explode and it will feel like its larger cousins.

A trigger point is essentially a painful tiny knot in the fibers of a muscle.
All of the muscles in your body are made up of bundles of fibers. The contraction of these fibers shortens your muscles and pulls on the bones of your body. The coordinated actions of muscles pulling on your bones is what makes it possible for you to walk, talk, cough, etc.

When a muscle receives a nerve impulse it contracts. When the nerve impulse goes away, the muscle stays contracted unless something pulls it back to its resting length. That's very important to realize; unless something pulls on a muscle, it stays contracted.

For reasons that are not precisely known, a single fiber of a muscle may stay contracted when the rest of the muscle has been pulled back to its resting length. I've simplified the anatomy somewhat, but that's essentially what happens, and the result is a trigger point.

Once you've practiced awhile, you will be able to feel many trigger points with your finger tips. A trigger point feels like a taught band in a muscle. Remember that all muscles are bunches of fibers. When the muscle is at its resting length, most of the fibers will be relaxed, but the "triggered" fibers will be tight since they didn't "let go".

Some of these taught bands will be very painful if you press on them, but not all. Whether painful or not, they are all interfering with the ability of your muscles to do work; if part of the muscle is always contracted, it can't perform as well as it should.

Trigger points often refer pain to other regions of your body.
This is very important to realize. For example, trigger points in your neck muscles can cause shooting pain behind your eyes.
If you have shooting pain behind one of your eyes, then you may find that the most effective treatment is to apply a cold pack to your neck.

I know this sounds counter-intuitive. If you head hurts, then surely you should apply the cold pack to your head... but that's not the case when the root cause is a trigger point in your neck.

If this sounds to you a bit like voodoo, rest assured that trigger point therapy is firmly based in Western Science.

Trigger point therapy evolved from the work of Dr. Janet Travell. Beginning in the 1940's, Dr. Travell conducted research on trigger points and referred pain. Her success led her to the post of White House physician for her successful treatment of John Kennedy. Dr. Travell's research, along with that of her colleague Dr. David Simons, has been published in the two volume set Myofascial Pain and Dysfunction: The Trigger Point Manual.

Travell and Simon were able to map where trigger points occur on most people. They were also able to map the areas of the body where pain is referred by each trigger point. The result is an accurate and repeatable guidebook that has proved its usefulness for countless patients.

Dr. Travell and Dr. Simon developed a treatment regimen for trigger points that required injecting each point with a painkiller, followed by passive stretching and the use of cooling spray.
Bonnie Pruden, an exercise and fitness guru, was the first to discover that trigger points can be "released" simply by pressing on them.

Pressing on a trigger point hurts. In some case pressing on a trigger point can hurt so much that it brings tears to your eyes and you jump up off the table. But pressing on a trigger point can also release them, eliminating the pain and muscle tension that they caused.

Learning to release trigger points effectively takes practice, but almost anyone can master the skill. Bonnie Pruden once taught a class of six-year-olds the basics. There's just no excuse not to try to learn yourself.