Today, what we’re going to be talking about is Achilles pain. Achilles pain plagues all runners at some level; if you’re a runner, I guarantee you have already been through it. You’ve had something going on there. There are many reasons why people get Achilles pain. I’m just going to break down the basics of it. Number 1: What is the Achilles? Achilles runs through two different muscles and I’m going to break that down. Number 2: What are the common reasons why those muscles fall apart? Number 3: What is one easy exercise I can do to clear it up? All right folks, so let’s get this started
Your Achilles is comprised of two muscles – one in your gastroc and one in your soleus. Your gastroc is the two big red muscles that are on top, and your soleus is the muscle that’s underneath that. That’s a very important muscle all on its own. Some people call it the second heartbeat, because it brings a lot of blood flow up. But they both extend the foot. They both help you bring the foot out, help you go on your tippy-toes, so on and so forth. So, you see how they both meld together. Together they form the Achilles – soleus and gastroc. If you have an Achilles issue, don’t think it’s just your calf muscle. It’s your calf and your soleus. If you’re doing a lot of calf stretching and it’s not going away, I guarantee you it’s the soleus. And you stretch the soleus slightly differently than you will stretch the calf, believe it or not, just because of where it attaches on the whole big scheme of things. So, that’s the Achilles.
The most common reason why you have Achilles pain is that your ankle and the intrinsic muscles of your feet no longer work very well. Achilles issues always come and go right around like planter’s fasciitis and sore feet all the time, because your intrinsic muscle – this muscles that comprises your arch and your foot no longer works. So, what happens is, they start to stretch out and start becoming hard, so you no longer have a shock absorber. That now hinders the ankle from moving, so now your Achilles and your soleus and gastroc have to work harder to extend the muscle, because the joint of your whole ankle no longer wants to move, because it’s being your shock absorber. So, the fact that the intrinsic muscles of your feet don’t work cause your ankles to start locking up rather than being a mobile object, forcing your calf and your soleus to work harder, hence the extra fray. That’s why you have Achilles issues. So, what are some things you can do to relieve this?
Okay, so, what we have to do now is we have to now focus on getting the Achilles and the soleus to start learning how to open them. What I’m going to show you is something called an eccentric load to the soleus and calf, aka your Achilles. What this is an eccentric load is the opposite of what a muscle technically does on its normal day-to-day function, which is contract. A muscle consistently contracts, consistently contracts. So, what happens is, on the open, that’s where it wants to contract. So, when you’re having Achilles pain, as you start to open and close, open and close, it opens, it doesn’t open as much, so you force it just by gravity, and that’s when it shreds. You have to do a controlled easy movement on the open, and once that happens, your body starts to reset how it’s supposed to do it. So, at first, you’re going to use a little bit of body weight, and then you’re just going to control the movement. So, what you’re going to do is get a stepper, or you can do this on any step. You want to now position yourself like you’re going to do a calf raise. You’re going to go up, leave a foot off, and then you want to hold for a second. Get that calf to start wanting to open up and you’ve got to feel it contracting, and then slowly, on a ten second count, let’s say, bring it down to the floor. So, you bring the whole calf down.
What happens is, it starts to stretch all the way throughout the whole calf, and the calf should be a different type of stretch. You want to open up and let it out, go to your calf raise, hold the calf raise, and then drop it down nice and slow. Give it a second to ten second round. Then once you’re in the stretch, in that way, you want to now to let it stretch. Let it open. Teach it how to reopen again. This is not a short-term thing. This is not three or four stretches and you’re done. We’re going to have to do this for a good ten times for a week, two weeks before you start really seeing some results because of changing that habit. It’s going to be very important for you to be patient with this, because you’re reconditioning a habit. This is the bigger key to it. If you’re having Achilles issues, you’re having ankle issues and intrinsic muscle issues – one concept. It could be something that’s triggering up top the chain – a knee issue or a hip issue – but you want to understand you have a movement pattern issue. It’s not just about that, just this one exercise, it’s about the movement pattern that you’re doing as well.
Are you, for instance, a heel striker when you run? All of those different things can cause this like heel striking or just a tippy toe runner. There are just pros and cons of running styles. There’s not one perfect running style. There are pros and cons to all of them. Heel striking, you’re going to compress a lot of joints, because you’re putting a lot of weight load on it. Balls of the feet runner, you’re going to compress your calves like crazy, as well as you’re not utilizing the intrinsic muscles as well. Mid-foot runner is the safest zone for people to be in. That’s why they say you want to be a mid-foot runner, but if you don’t have the hip integrity, you’re never going to be that. You’re either going to be a toe runner or a heel runner. You have to have the hip integrity, ankle integrity to have an easy flow within the lower body.
Today, what we’re going to be talking about is that lovely concept that I keep on hearing about. It’s when doctors tell their patients, “You have one leg shorter than the other.” It always is funny to me when I hear someone say their doctor has told them that because unless you or your doctor measures your bone, you might not have a leg length discrepancy. It could just be caused by a muscle. That muscle, which we’re going to be taking apart today, is your quadratuus lumborum; it’s a muscle that’s in your lower back, and it’s really, really deep.
The quadratuus lumborum is very deep- actually four layers of muscle down and runs from the rib cage to the hip. It’s your back muscle and travels through four layers. Four layers so it’s very much a core muscle. Four layers deep, so this is a very core aspect of a muscle. What I mean by that is, if you mess with this muscle, it has a direct effect on your core structure – meaning your spine, your ribs, and your hips. Those things move, many things move. It’s not like your trap – where your trap is just attached to your shoulders and parts of your rib cage and things like that. This muscle has access to everything – diaphragm, pelvic floor. I want you to understand, when this muscle gets upset and it starts to contract itself, there are a lot of things going on, not just a habit.
The most important activity of the quadratuus lumbarum is that it helps you rotate to one side, so you’re leaning to one side. If you get out of bed as you should- putting one hand on the mattress and raising, you are using this muscle. This is the big one. It hikes up one hip so if you’re a person that likes to stand on one hip, you’re contracting this muscle to hold that body up right alongside of the glute and other aspects of your hip rotators. This is the main function of this muscle. When you lean on one hip (picture a mom with a baby on her hip), the muscle goes from straight and balanced to hiking up. The hips change, but you’re still somewhat standing up straight. You’ll never truly realize a half-inch discrepancy, holding at a resting rate. What you realize is, as it hikes up over and over again, that’s now holding a posture. Holding a posture, that’s going to now bring up one leg.
So, what you have to realize is, that that muscle tissue is now bringing one side up. So, if you’re standing relatively straight and if you decided to hike one hip up and your body’s designed stay with the horizon, stay level and stay up, you wouldn’t even notice yourself shifting your hips. If you straight you won’t even realize you’re hiking your hips. Your upper body actually stays relatively level. You’ll never really realize what’s happening down below.
That’s the trick with quadratuus lumbarum, so podiatrists that say, “Oh, that leg height discrepancy, let’s put a heel lift in.” All those things are good and they help you with the pain, but the basic cause of it is not your bony structure, it’s actually your muscle. So, next time a doctor says, “You need a heel lift,” right after that you said, “Measure my bones.” Heel lift? Measure my bones. That’s what you want to do. You want to start measuring from your hip bone to your knee, your knee to the ankle, and do the same thing to the other side. If they match up, you don’t need a heel lift, you need to work with a different muscle tissue that’s jacking up your hip. It’s easy as that. Heel lift? Then you need to measure my bones. That’s it. That’s an easy way to do it. Even better if you get an x-ray. An x-ray, it’s spot on.
But x-rays are costly. You want to go along with that with x-rays for, let’s say, hip issue. Something like that. You accidentally hurt your hip. That’s something good to know, “Do I have a hip discrepancy?” Ask to have your bones measured right there. This muscle is very deep – actually four layers of muscle down and runs from the rib cage to the hip. I want to focus now on that you have been told you have a leg discrepancy, and you don’t know how to fix it. One, you can measure the bone with one of those tailor tapes. It’s not going to be completely accurate, but you’ll see whether you have a leg discrepancy or not. But how do you clean it up? The easiest way to clean it up is actually getting your hips in line.
The easiest way to stretch your quads out some more is cross your feet – one behind the other while standing. It doesn’t matter which foot is in front because they’re both crossed, right? You reach up for the sky. You consistently reach, reach, reach, reach, reach until you feel a tug under your arm about ¾ of the way up your torso. When done right, you’ll see your shirt is going to be, long, long, long, and then it’s going to start pulling on my hip. You’ll see a pull on your pants also. Once you reach there, all you have to do is now keep on reaching for the ceiling. Reach for the ceiling, reach for the ceiling, and slightly twist and that’s it. Some people might actually get a good stretch without the twist. You’ll get the stretch at that point but if you’re actually somewhat flexible, you’ll be able to extend out. Try to move through the stretch and get a slight range of motion, over across your body. So, you’re are going from straight up and then lean, either raising your right arm, you’re leaning over to the left, opening up that whole right side of your hip and low back and repeat raising the left arm leaning over to the right. That’s where your quadratuus lumbarum resides. You want that to open. You want to do this nice and easy, this is a very temperamental area.
Remember, especially if you have pain during this exercise, you want to take it easy, nice and slow. Done correctly, you are giving your body a compelling reason to not hold a contraction and protect itself. So, be easy to yourself. Be kind to yourself; strengthening that muscle alone will change so many different things. Remember, the quadratuus lumborum is tightly knit to your rib cage, your lower back, and lumbar region, as well as your hip. Those three areas have such a cascading effect if one of those things decides to change for the better; cascade effects inside the rib cage, shoulders, lower back, hips, knees. A cascade effect can be negative too; there are so many different things that could happen because of something going wrong. You want to take it easy on this area but be aware if someone says, “You have a leg length discrepancy, let’s put in a heel lift,” measure the bones.
Your pectoralis major muscle, or pec as its more commonly referred too makes up the whole entire chest region of your body. There are a great deal of reasons that you can benefit from stretching your pec and I’m going to tell you what they are and how to stretch it. It’s a main component of keeping you in a protective position and it’s one of our dominant muscles used for reaching out in front of ourselves.
The pec is a muscle that is consistently working since majority of our movements use it. When doing things out in front of us, it’s the major muscle that turns on. The pec rolls you forward and holds you out in front of you. Its main job is to reach out and grab someone or thing, pull close or push away and then hold things tight. If you hold your hands together and push your fingertips together and squeeze, you’ll feel your pec contract. That’s a very easy way to feel just how massive the pec is.
What we need to realize is, if it’s a dominant muscle it’s going to be steadily tight. That tightness stems from the pec always wanting to roll you forward, specifically, pec minor. If you experience upper back tightness this is one of the main areas you would need to open up. However, its main job is to keep you close, it keeps you closed.
So, let’s talk benefits….I’ll just run through some easy quick ones. One, I mentioned above, relieves upper back pain. The pec is one of the main reasons your upper back is chronically aching in the first place. Two, it helps you breathe. If you open up your chest your ribs will start to open up as well. Therefor taking a deep breath actually opens you up more, in turn giving you more air. Receiving more oxygen results in more oxygen-rich blood flow and if you have that healing is that much better. You need oxygen to heal. So taking in more air raises your healing rate.
The third benefit is connected with taking in more air. The more breath you’re taking, the more air you’re receiving, the more your fight or flight mechanism naturally shrinks and drops. What you want to think about as you open up the chest is your fight or flight instinct decreasing and focus more on healing. Lastly, it makes you more confident. When you’re completely open, your body does miraculous things on a mindset level. With more confidence, you’re willing to achieve more. If you ever think about any depressed posture, your body naturally wants to crawl in; when you’re not feeling well, you naturally curl in. During the day when you’re not thinking clearly, when you’re on the computer all day and feeling broken down, you’re in this state. As soon as you think of something that you love, you will begin to open up. With an open chest, your body naturally wants to be out in the open since it now feels safe. You’re able to attack the world. So open up and feel confident!
Now, how do you stretch your pec? I see a lot of people holding a door jamb and turning leaning forward, and yes, it’s a great stretch, but most people make one crucial mistake that ruins everything. If using a door jamb, that is going to be your stable. You want to start out by putting your elbow against the door jamb while you face the door. The common mistake people make is to turn your body. You will start to feel the stretch here, but then it starts to compromise the joint because it’s not a straight movement. The easiest way to fix this is to take the opposite foot of the elbow you have on the jamb and step it through the doorway. You will begin to feel the whole entire pec opening. Do not twist! Keep the movement in a straight line, facing forward. Keep it nice and easy and the pec will start to open up. That is the easiest way to stretch your pec without torqueing your shoulder.
That’s how to stretch your pec. Let’s dig deeper into what you’re actually stretching. There are three fibers that you have to really understand about when it comes to the pec muscle. The pec fibers run in three different locations; there’s an upper, middle and lower fiber. Each one of those runs you in a different direction, a different plane of motion. One runs you straight across, the other rotates your hand up and the last one rotates your hand down. So when you’re stretching you want to actually place your elbow on the door jamb at a higher, middle and lower angle. When stretching higher, have your elbow slightly above your clavicle. Your elbow should be right in a straight line when stretching the middle and angled slightly low for the last stretch. You will be stretching all three angles of the pec if you position your elbow in those three angles while stepping straight through the door.
Take Away:
There are a plethora of benefits to stretching the chest and pec. Open it up and you’ll feel more confident, you’ll be able to breathe better, lose your fight or flight response and take in a lot more oxygen. Those are really easy, very basic benefits from stretching your pec. The most common mistake is torqueing up the angle at the shoulder; it needs to be a straight line. Remember, when you find that door jamb, put the elbow against it and take a nice easy step through.
Painful achy upper back pain got you down? I’m going to break down why it happens and what the fix is for it. I find when I tell people that I’m a massage/restorative therapist their first reaction is to grab their lower back and tell me how they need help with it or that they hold a lot of tension in the upper back. They are not alone, so many people hold achiness in their upper back. It’s just there…and I’ll tell you why.
Try visualizing it like this; the way a muscle works is it intertwines, opening and closing like a door and while there are certain muscles that just contract, there are certain muscles that open. Now, depending on where the muscle tissue lies from anterior to posterior, your body is going to tell you two different things; one will be more prone to open and one is going to be prone to close. In short, I always tell people that the anterior side of your body is overused, therefore a common action for the muscle is to contract. Your anterior muscles are always going to contract along with your anterior side. Their dominant action is to keep you closed and also to protect your vital organs. The more the muscles contract, the more the muscles in your back open.
When a muscle contracts, it’s just like a closed door and not much blood flow goes through it. On the other hand, when a muscle opens it gives toxins the room to start flowing through and that’s when the muscle starts communicating to you that it’s in pain and needs help. If you can keep the muscle tissue moving it will communicate clearly. If it is ‘open’ all the time, it’s going to be mad and that’s why there’s constant pain.
Let’s take the concept of sitting at your computer. As you sit there and start getting into your work, you start rolling your shoulders forward as well as bending your body forward. Performing in this position starts opening your back and consequently muscle tissues start to open and that is the reason why you have an achy back. You have to start developing proper posture and straighten up. Looking at the bigger picture, however, you have to get the opposite muscles to stop doing what they’re doing or you’re you will end up with the same result. Unless you get your anterior side to open, you’re never going to get your posterior side to stop screaming at you.
The easiest way to apply this is to start to understand the posterior side of your body, there are many parts to it, but let’s focus on your traps since those are the easiest to work with. The natural job of the traps is to pull you in and in doing so the muscle is contracting. As this happens, the ‘doors’ are closing when it pulls in. So as you sit up straight, adjusting your posture and open up your chest, your back feels better because you’ve closed the ‘door’; the tissues have closed up and the toxins are not running through.
Oppositely, on your anterior side, we have the pectoralis muscle, pec minor, specifically. Your pec minor rolls you forward on an internal structural level, it’s not just a slight roll, it can actually rotate how your scapula moves and holds you there. People who consistently have tight, rolled shoulders…this is your culprit. This one muscle will rearrange everything how the upper back truly functions and speaks to you. You can do pec stretches all day long, but if you’re only hitting the top layer, your pec major, you’re always going to be stuck here. Your shoulders will roll back, but you’ll have that winged scapula. That will be your indicator that your pec minor is still stuck, but your pec major is open. Once you start realizing the basic concept of, if something on the front of your body kicks in and you don’t get the back of the body to kick in as well and balance it up; because your back is open and the pec is so much stronger, it’s always going to strain.
Take Away:
The basic concept is, if you have an achy upper back, if you don’t get the pec to open up you’re never going to get the muscle tissue to actually close; resulting in you always being rolled forward. Even if we get the pecs to open you’ll have a winged scapula, where your shoulder blade is protruding from your back. The goal is to get everything to open up, allowing your chest to be nice and big and wide. Once you get that to occur your upper back achiness will just go away all on its own because it has a chance to balance out the way you stand, furthermore, the tissues now have a reason to close as well as open.
Ice it or Heat it? That is the question. I’m here to answer that along with when to use, how to use it and any other confusing questions people have about it. I’m going to break it down to the basics and by the end of this you’ll understand the difference between ice vs. heat. First things first, you must understand what happens to your body when something external transfers internal. No matter what, it will always defend itself. It always has a reaction.
When talking about an injury, we want to grasp the concept that your body is protecting itself naturally. There are many benefits to icing as well as heating. The biggest benefit to icing is the numbing effect it has. So basically what happens is the ice slows down the flow of blood which slows the impulse response of the nerves until the body no longer feels the area, thus slowing down inflammation. At some point your body is going to think you’re going into hypothermia and will rush a lot of blood flow through that area, which you cannot feel since it’s numb. So, in a nutshell, icing brings a lot of blood to an area and slows down inflammation. When it comes to healing, blood is king! The more blood you have going to an area, the faster it will heal.
Now, on the flip side, with heat, it instantly brings a lot of blood flow to the area. What happens here is, if it’s an acute issue, like a rolled ankle, you apply heat and it’s going to blow up since blood will start to flow to that area immediately. When using heat you may feel a ton more sensation since you are speeding up the nerve impulse conductivity. Your body will speak to you so much more in a blood-rich environment than a blood-latent environment. You want to remember this when deciding which method to use. Ice will numb the area and eventually bring blood flow and heat will bring blood flow immediately.
The body responds to everything it needs. If your body needs blood flow, use heat. However, if you hurt yourself, meaning acute condition you’ll want to ice it. I’ve read many different statistics and heard many different professionals talk about how long you want to use ice. Bottom line is, as long as your body is not receiving blood flow, it’s actually not healing. If you have pain, your body will not be healing anyway since it’s going to want to protect itself. After three or four days of ice, if your acute pain is gone and you continue to ice the area you will actually slow down the bonding aspect of the healing process. Yes, you’ll feel better, but when it comes down to stability and structure for later on, you’re genuinely slowing down the healing process. That is when you want to switch to heat. You’ll want to bring more blood flow to the area and get it moving. That’s the rule of thumb, ice in the very beginning and then always use heat, otherwise you’re just slowing down the long-term healing operation.
I personally am a big fan of always using heat just because it feels good. Even when you have an acute issue you can use a little heat. I wouldn’t go as far as to use a heating pad however. I would more use my hands and just hold the area, comfort it and squeeze it. For an injury such as a rolled ankle, twisted knee or sore muscle, I would actually hold the area. Same goes for bruises; you want to get more blood flow at a small pace-very very brief pace.
Take-Away
There are a lot of statistics out there, but don’t get caught up in them. What I want you to focus on is just what feels right to you. If it feels right that you use heat, then use it. If you want to use ice, use it. Just be aware of the timeline you’re working with so you’re consistently understanding your body. It’s alright to take a shot, as long as you feel good. That is when your body will perpetually run better and more efficient.
So we’ve been talking about getting clear and taking a path to eliminating pain. We’ve figured out that pain is not random. Now that you’ve figured out what is going on…..what do you do? You have to start building a team! So let’s go through some the big mistakes that people make when going to get a massage.
We all know that massage is immensely important in many different ways and the many benefits it can have. What we have to realize is when we go to get a massage we’re not just ‘checking out’. You have to realize what your intentions are when you go. If you’re going in just to check out, as long as you understand that beforehand, it’s fine. However, if you are going in for help in a specific area, follow these 3 steps:
If the therapist asks you what’s going on, you do not want to say nothing and just tell them you’re alright, then you’re just going to end up getting a routine massage. That routine is going to be based off many different things and you’ll be at the whim of the schooling of the therapist. I’m not saying all therapists are bad, I’m just saying you’re not driving the train, so you can end up anywhere. For those who want to check out, that’s perfect. When you allow a therapist to do whatever, unless they know you very well and they understand how your body’s working, your body will just protect itself. You will end up checking out mentally, but your body will clam shut. Since it doesn’t know or trust this person, it doesn’t know if it’s safe. Yeah we have spa music on, it’s tranquil, but if you change that thought process and tell the therapist what to focus on, then your body’s saying I have some direction and will start working with the therapist. I guarantee your therapist will thank you for it, whether the therapist knows it or not, that direction gives him a purpose, rather than him searching for one.
Now tell them exactly what you want to get done; don’t clump it all into one area. Don’t say, ‘I hurt here, so just focus on this area’ or ‘So let’s just do upper back’ or ‘Let’s just do lower back’. The body doesn’t work like that. You want to allow the therapist to do extra work on the affected area and to also incorporate what’s happening in other parts of the body. If not, your body will start to off balance itself and something else will clam shut because it’s going to have to work harder. You want to think consistent balance; work as many areas as possible in the world of circulation, of kneading muscle tissue and all these different aspects of the greatness of massage.
Incorporate stretching or any movement in a massage. The way that muscle tissue works is the more it moves, the more blood flow flushes through. So you’re getting your massage…you’ve told the therapist exactly what you want…if you don’t allow that area to move during the massage all those latent toxins will just pool. Once you get up and start moving afterwards who knows how your body will react. If during your massage they stretch out areas they are working on, those parts will start learning how to open after they’ve learned to contract. That’s when your body says ‘oh wait, this is a proper movement’. It’s so much more likely that the body will hold that movement pattern and say ‘this is alright’ as well as eliminate all those toxins that were flushed out in the first place.
Take Away:
So those are the three things I want you to focus on. One, don’t go in without a plan unless you want to check out. Two, identify with your therapist specific problems you want addressed and not let them work on just that area. Three, do some stretching or movement work during the treatment. All three of those will get you better results with every single massage you do. If you’re a massage therapist, ask for those things, focus on those things, because you’ll get such better results.
Hopefully you’re starting to piece things together, because all this is is data retention of knowing what is going on with yourself and other people. The more you start understanding others and yourself, you can start to notice things before they happen. You will start to see and know yourself and be able to pick yourself apart. This is key! Once you are able to achieve that you can preempt things and then you are no longer reacting to situations…you are responding to them and now you are on the road to consistently being pain free.
Today, what we’re going to be talking about is Achilles pain. Achilles pain plagues all runners at some level; if you’re a runner, I guarantee you have already been through it. You’ve had something going on there. There are many reasons why people get Achilles pain. I’m just going to break down the basics of it. Number 1: What is the Achilles? Achilles runs through two different muscles and I’m going to break that down. Number 2: What are the common reasons why those muscles fall apart? Number 3: What is one easy exercise I can do to clear it up? All right folks, so let’s get this started
