by Patrick LeRouge | Jul 17, 2014 | video tips
What’s up folks? Patrick Lerouge here, from Evolve Restorative Therapy. You can find me at livepainfreeprocess.com.Last week we spoke about carpal tunnel syndrome and I referred to something for which I don’t have a video. I was talking about wrist pain and how carpal tunnel has more issues within the shoulder, yet I did not make a video of the driver inside the shoulder. So today, I am going to mesh the worlds of rotator cuff pain and what I have talked about in the previous week.
What you have to realize with carpal tunnel is that the area in the upper part of the body, is always the bigger driver. So I’m going to show you one of the things I use to break up the functionality between the shoulder and the rotator cuff muscle. This one muscle can shift the way all shoulder muscles work together by rotating your whole scapula along with the glide of the shoulder joint. These muscles need to work in unison, yet the common misconception is that they need to be strong. It’s more about learning how to make them move smoothly and glide in different directions and ranges of motion. You have to break the cycle of fascial binding. If you do that, the body will know what it needs to do and it will do it on its own. So I’m going to show you the easiest muscle to gain access to and the one that affects the entire area. The Infraspinatus is the easiest muscle to reach, which lies directly on top of the triangular scapula bone. This muscle radiates pain right on the bicep head, at the front of the shoulder.
What you want to think about is going from the spine to the shoulder, because that’s how the fiber pattern runs. If you start getting the shoulder to move better, the shoulder will drop and many things will change. Yet there is a reason why this rotator cuff is falling apart and that is what we have to discover.
What I’m going to show you now, is how to work with this area by utilizing the handball. You want to put the handball in the middle of the scapula and slowly allow it to go inside. This muscle has a slow reaction time, because it is so delicate. So don’t rub it all around your scapula trying to get a quick response, because this will elicit a protection response instead. Once you put it in, relax and let the muscle react to you and when this happens, you will start feeling everything that needs to be adjusted.
You are going to put the handball against your back on top of the scapula, lean against the wall, and pull your feet away from your body. As soon as you rotate out, the weight load and angle starts to push on that ball. The ball pushes back and shows you the area you need to work on. Once you do that, lean on it and wait for a little. It will start to refer to where the pain is after three seconds. Then you need to slowly rotate your body to the left and similarly rotate it back to the original position. Then follow the same technique with the ball positioned slightly above, which will touch on many areas at once. Your body is then going to learn how to move in different directions, because you have been focusing on different fiber patterns. Afterwards, perform different arm movements to see what has altered within your shoulder. The more fluid you become, the better you will become at talking with your body. If you guys enjoyed this tip, please share it and I will see you next time.
by Patrick LeRouge | Jul 10, 2014 | video tips
Today we are in a seated position and we’re going to talk about carpal tunnel as well as wrist pain. The biggest thing I have to say about carpal tunnel and wrist pain is that when you are looking at it from a symptomatic view, it’s all about where the pain is located and where the extensors or flexors are located. Yet with carpal tunnel, most of the time it goes up towards the top of the body and that is the problem. In this area, we are referring to shoulder issues, neck issues, and the T-spine as well. If you’re looking for a solution to the problem for long-term, go upstream to where the shoulder, neck and thoracic spine are located.
Today, however, we will talk about what is happening within the wrist itself and the symptomatic view of wrist pain. Someone asked me about this, so I’m giving this tip to you. For wrist pain, I think the most effective treatment method is doing trigger point work. As you guys know, I dislocated my carpals as a teenager playing basketball, so my wrists broke. That is what got me started on this whole journey for recovery. As a massage therapist, every other week I was out and it was horrible so I perfected this technique for myself. That is the key here. This hits home for me in many ways because I couldn’t do the things that I loved, such as helping people.
What I’m going to show you is some easy breaks you can do to get the pain to subside dramatically. However, remember that this is a symptomatic view, not a systematic view. During the symptomatic view, you’ll get guaranteed short-term gain. Some of the trigger points can refer to different places but we are only going to be looking at it in specific areas. I’m going to give you a visual of the muscle tissue. So when you’re looking at anything that I refer to regarding on trigger point work, it is about the general area. It will never refer to that one point, because you’re never going to find that one point in the plethora of fibers that you have. You want to think about it in terms of muscle groups that are causing pain in that general area.
So if you have a trigger finger, we will be looking at the muscle group that runs along the forearm. Whatever happens at the top is also happening in the flexors, at the bottom, as well. So the top of your forearm can mirror the part underneath your forearm. You will be trigger-pointing both sides of your forearm, for wrist pain. I’m only going to show you a couple of muscles on one side and you’re just going to mirror it to the other side.
Within your extensors, you want to realize that the pain in the elbow refers down to the hand and it’s not always right around where the real problem is. It’s important to remember your pain is always someplace else. There’s always something driving it someplace else.
One area in your extensors is very close to the elbow and you then have to work your way down. Another area is the thinner muscle you feel when you rotate your forearm slightly. This muscle on the outside refers pain exactly in the center. This muscle is always going to be inflamed and irritated. The next area to look at is the outside of the forearm itself. So, from the top view, you’re looking at the forearm at three different areas: you’re going to be focusing on the middle, the inside, and outside. Once you do that, then your body is going to really start moving.
Please be mindful of what’s happening because as you change things at the top, the bottom will also change. In carpal tunnel syndrome, there is a small, inflamed hole that holds all the tendons around your wrist. This inflammation now starts to crush the tendon, which causes the entire wrist to get tighter.
So, if you start loosening all these areas, they are going to work harder and therefore hurt more. Remember, you have to balance what you’re doing at the bottom, by your wrist, with what is happening at the top, by the shoulder, neck, and T-spine. So that’s going to be key here.
FOR THE HOW TO PLEASE WATCH THE VIDEO.
by Patrick LeRouge | Jul 3, 2014 | video tips
What’s up? Patrick Lerouge here from Evolve Restorative Therapy. You can find me at livepainfreeprocess.com. I help people enhance their performance and eliminate pain for the long term, folks. So for this week’s tip, we will be discussing the concept of shoulder hiking. This may cause many issues, such as not being able to turn your head well or not having a proper range-of-motion in the shoulders. Such issues may also restrict the breathing pattern. Let’s take a deeper look into this issue and see how much we can get our shoulders to come down. We will be talking about this from a symptomatic point of view, not just as a driver of pain. We want to start looking at the body to find out what is happening and what is causing this tightness. I will be teaching you how to bring your shoulders down so you can regain some movement. This will not eliminate pain for the long-term, but it will give you relief and actually give your shoulders some range-of-motion so you can process it into a long-term event. I already talked about a few of these things previously, but I received feedback from people requesting I go into more detail. The tip for this week will serve that purpose.
Shoulder hiking also pairs well with the tip about neck pain that I posted a few weeks back, so take a look at that if you have not. One of the muscles that we will focus on is Levator Scapulae. When your shoulders are lifted high, your Levator Scapulae is at work, being one of the many muscles that make this happen. This muscle brings your shoulders up so when you are stuck in a high position, the levator asks the trap to do some work. This solidifies the lifting motion and keeps it there. Once it’s held, that means the trap is going to start working harder and in turn, it’s going to bring down the electrical tone in one of the key muscles, your lats, which is then going to bring your shoulders down. The lats and the scapulae are the two muscles we will focus on today. So what I’m going to show you is exactly where they are, in which direction they lie, and whether you need to do foam rolling, trigger point work, or stretching. You want to look at these exercises.
The job of the Levator Scapulae is to elevate your scapulae by rolling your shoulder and scapulae up. This can straighten everything out, making you stuck in a tight position.
So we want to start targeting many of the attachment sites near the base of the head, through trigger point work. Doing this throughout the neck as well, will be key for getting the Levator unstuck. When I spoke about neck pain, I went into detail about the twist in the Levator itself, and that will be the key spot.
It runs all the way from the bottom of the head to the tip of the Scapulae. You want to either do some stretching in this area or trigger point work. You can contract your muscles, take a nice deep breath, and let it all drop and relax. That’s a common exercise that people use to alleviate tension and mental stress. I want you guys to focus on the contraction and relaxation aspect of this muscle. You want to contract as hard as you possibly can and then learn how to really let it go as you drop your muscles down. That’s one of the things that will drive your shoulders to go up. We now want to focus on our lat.
The main function of the lat is to bring the scapulae down. It’s also very important you notice how it brings the scapulae down. It’s not just a straight motion, but a rotational motion. This muscle is going to compete with the trap. You want something to compete with the trap but because it is always so tight, it’s naturally going to take down the defenses of the lat muscle. Everyone thinks about contracting muscle tissue, but it just can’t do its work because it’s bound so you want to do some real good foam rolling throughout the lat so it can do its job and compete. Once you get the lat to move better through foam rolling, you can continue with trigger point work. When you get those things to move, your shoulders will drop and you can move without hiking up the shoulders and using the Levator as stabilization for your head and upper body. You want your lat to hold everything down low so your arms can move properly. This will create momentum that will pull you forward. However if you are bound in that area when the shoulders are brought up, everything is harder to move but as soon as they drop, everything turns into a pendulum. When you are tight, you use more energy to move, yet when everything is lose, less energy is required. If you start working with these two muscles simultaneously, then you have a powerful tool to get your shoulders to drop.
by Patrick LeRouge | Jun 26, 2014 | video tips
What’s going on, folks? Patrick LeRouge here from Evolve Restorative Therapy. I’m here to help you eliminate pain for the long term, folks. I’m here to help you enhance your performance and your life. Recently, I have been getting many comments from people who want to eliminate low back pain. They understand that I talk about a lot of the driving forces, but what they specifically ask me about is the sequence that they can use. I’m going to show you various stretches that can eliminate back pain or subside the back pain you’re experiencing.
You can also pair up this sequence of exercises with foam rolling and trigger point work for more effectiveness. If you can do these stretches along with foam rolling and trigger point work, your back pain will start to dramatically change within a week. You will notice that it is stronger and it can uphold itself, depending on how you deal with it.
The first exercise I want you to start focusing on is the stretching of your calf. Your calf is important to the big picture of your fascial system and your posterior layer. The calf will be a key target because it will always be tight. Since your low back and mid-back are not working very well, you’re going to start picking up slack in your calves. Propping yourself up on your feet a lot more is also going to contract the calf muscles. That calf system will then start to get tighter and tighter, eventually pulling more on the fascial sheath in the entire back part of your body. So if you get the calves to start working better, your lower back will also start to move more.
You want to get your calf muscles to move at first. Then you can start worrying about how to eliminate pain afterwards. Getting the muscles in the calf and back to move, will introduce blood flow, thereby promoting healing. Once you get that posterior chain to glide a little better, you’re going to move to your quad muscles.
The quad is a big driver that can tilt the hips forward and pull on your lower back, resulting in a massive rotation of the spine. You want to get your quads to give the back some leeway so you can fluctuate it back and forth.
Your glute is the next muscle you want to learn how to move. This is not a huge glute stretch; you are just trying to get it to move a little. Once the hip tightens up, the glutes naturally learn how to turn off. So you have to wake them up a little by getting them to move and then proceed to your lower back. At that point, your lower back should also start wanting to move a little. You want to start asking it to move a little more until the end, where you’re going to do rotations of the back. This will incorporate different facets of the spine itself. If you’re having lower back issues, target these muscle groups and perform foam rolling and trigger point work. It’s going to start learning how to move better with these areas of focus.
Now here is the key point. This will only work if you’re having a root problem in the lower body. If you have a lat issue, a shoulder issue, or a neck issue that’s driving this, these exercises will not work for very long. There’s a different driver in those situations and that is the tricky part. I’ll talk about that in a different week. So I’m going to explain to you how to stretch each one of these areas and you can continue on your own after that.
The easiest way to stretch the calf is when your body is at a 90-degree angle, with your legs laid flat. Once you’re at this angle, you lock in the hips, and pull your toes toward you, to feel the stretching in your calf. Everyone says to hold stretches for hours on end, but I just want you to hold this stretch for three seconds, release it, and then take a deep breath. Pay attention to how this whole area moves and then let it go. It’s very important that you add breathing into this. I’m a big fan of passive stretching so I use a rope. Do not use a band, because it actually has microfiber bounces, which we will discuss at a different time. You are going to take a rope, pull it forwards gently, take a deep breath, and then let the rope release itself. You can do this three or four times on each leg at your discretion.
Then the easiest way to stretch your quad is to back yourself into the chair, put your right foot on the chair with your shin against it, and your knee on the ground. You want to make sure your foot and leg create a 90-degree angle. Then all you have to do is move your left knee forward. Make sure you are keeping your core tight as you stretch. As you stretch more, you can take a deep breath, let it go, then slowly move your knee back. Do this exercise on both sides.
Sitting upright with your legs lying flat, bring your right bent knee over your left leg and pull it towards your left shoulder. Many people have a tendency to rotate the waist and indirectly the spine as well. Instead, just sit up straight and look forward. This is about glute movement so the more you can get one leg over the other, the more stretch you will feel in your glute.
Another exercise you can do, is slowly bring your neck down towards your chest, rolling each vertebrae forward. Then lean a little more forward while rolling, with your back away from the wall, so you can have more access to the lower part of your back.
For this last stretch, you can take your right hand and put it under your left bent leg. As your perform this, you will notice your back start to open up and your lat will stretch, getting you to twist. This gives you a controlled rotation and allows you to control how far you reach. You will realize how much you are moving and how much you are going through the motion.
So now, get up and walk around. This won’t eliminate pain like a magic pill, but it will get your back moving. Once it starts moving, it will create blood flow, causing it to heal. It’s going to try to lock up, especially if you are not focusing on your driver. You need to do this consistently, pairing it up with foam rolling and trigger point work. Look at my other videos if you need help with foam rolling and trigger point work. Doing these exercises together will yield great results.
by Patrick LeRouge | Jun 19, 2014 | Foam Rolling, video tips
What’s up, folks? Patrick LeRouge here from Evolve Restorative Therapy. You can find me at livepainfreeprocess.com. I help people eliminate pain and for the long-term, I help you enhance your performance for long-term. That’s what I’m here to do today, folks. And today is a fun topic for me. As you can see, I’m a little giddy. And what I want to talk to you about is foam rolling should not be painful. That’s the name of the game today, and I find this comical because I look all over the place, and every time I talk to a person, I was like, “Oh, do you foam roll?” And they say, “No, it hurts too much,” or “I stay away from that because it hurts too much,” or “That’s the worst thing in the world that feels so good and it hurts so bad.” And I’m just like, I don’t understand that. How does that make sense? The body is not designed just to say, ‘Oh, I’m going to hurt you and it’s going to be great.’
So think about this analogy, I decide to walk up to you and punch you in the face repeatedly. Just keep on punching you, punching you, punching you, punching you. And then, you’re saying, “Oh, Pat, you’re doing something great to me. Thank you.” And then I stop, and because I stopped punching you, you feel better. That’s the thought that goes through my head every time someone says, ‘It feels so good but it hurts. I do it all the time but it hurts.” It’s like, all right, yeah, it hurts because you’re doing something wrong and the body’s telling you stop. So when you do stop doing something that hurt you, of course it’s going to feel better, of course it’s going to change.
But do you wonder why your body keeps on getting tighter and tighter in that area? Because it’s building more and more protection against you. That’s what it’s doing. So the reason why your foam rolling never progresses is because you keep on doing it in a manner that’s forcing your body to design itself to protect harder. So you have to come up with more and more cunning ways to foam roll to get your [?] system to work better. Instead of doing it in a way where your body says, ‘You know what? This isn’t the right place to work efficiently. Let’s back off, let’s lengthen.’ And then your body is going to start saying, ‘Oh, wait. Look, this is working, this is right, let’s work more.’
But there is a downside to the “let’s work more.” Is, it is going to start [?] binding up a little bit better but it’s going to be a different type of a [?] binding, guaranteed. It’s going to be something that’s not so stubborn to get rid of. As soon as you start working with your body, it’s going to go. It’s just going to give, it’s going to say, ‘Oh, yeah, yeah. I remember that, let’s go up. Let’s move, let’s move, let’s move. Let’s get it to lengthen, let’s get it to move, let’s get it to become more pliable.’
So if you find yourself doing that face and you’re doing, ‘Oh, my God. It hurts. Oh, my God. It hurts.’ Stop what you’re doing, stop. Because if you’re doing this… Oh, my gosh, you’re doing a horrible service to yourself and I see it all the time. The whole pain and no gain scenario is overrated. It’s done. You need to stop doing this to yourself because you’re only hurting yourself for the long term.
Yes, your body will change, it’s an adaptive device. It will change no matter what, but it’s not going to change always for the good for the long term. So it’s very, very key to stop doing this whole foam rolling because it hurts, I have to do it. You have to do it in the right way. So I’m going to give you three tips how to do this.
Number one, foam rolling is all about slow pace. It needs to be slow.
Number two, it’s all about angle and weight load. You have to understand that your body is– it needs to be able to move. So you need to now have your weight load someplace else, so you can actually get near the proper weight load for that area. If you’re on your quad, the opposite leg needs to be holding that weight load.
Number three, you need to find out what your body is saying, how it’s saying it, what areas it needs to do and focus on what muscle you’re doing. It’s not just about just run and going, and then rolling all over the place, because that’s when your body is going to protect. You need to find out, “My body says, ‘Oh, this is comfortable. This is where I need to go.” So the optimum word is you want to live in a world of discomfort, not pain, discomfort. And then work your way from there. Never going to this pain zone. So find out where your body is saying, “Go,” and only go to that place of discomfort.
Once you past that discomfort world, if anyone goes to hit you, you’re going to protect yourself. Think about that. Don’t you think your body is going to do the same thing against you? Anything external coming in, it’s guaranteed to protect a little bit. But now, you throw in pain, 100% protection. Let’s stop doing that. That’s my plea to the world. Stop foam rolling to pain. Follow those three steps and follow all the videos that I have for foaming rolling that’s not painful. You know, follow it. And I hopefully see you soon. Bye.
by Patrick LeRouge | May 29, 2014 | video tips
What’s up everybody? Patrick Lerouge here, from Evolve Restorative Therapy. You can find me at livepainfreeprocess.com. Folks, I help people that need to live an active pain-free life. They need it. So they need to eliminate pain for the long term, not just for a little bit. That’s what we’re going to be focusing on today, as well as enhancing performance, whether it would be playing with kids, running around, weekend warrior, whatever it takes, every now and then. Whatever it takes every now and then, that’s a good one. That’s what I help with folks. I help you eliminate pain for the long-term and enhance your performance.
What we’re going to be talking about this week is actually how to eliminate pain for the long-term. I want to dive deep into this a little bit today. I was working with a client and they asked me about all these different ways, “Should I eliminate PT because they do this, this, this, this – all these different things?” I want to remind you, folks, everything works. Everything works, but the video tip today is how not to get stuck by using Band-Aid solutions. No, don’t think that’s the end-all-be-all.
If you keep on doing something over and over again, it’s giving you results, but not for long-term, that’s something that you want to use for the time – the intermediate time – but not for long-term. You want to find out the hidden driver, what’s going on. You don’t want to consistently keep on putting a Band-Aid on it. You don’t want to consistently use meds to keep on going through things. You don’t want to keep on using braces. You want to find out the hidden cost. A brace is great if you have a bony issue or a ligament issue that needs time to heal – long-term time – but not because you can’t sit up. Every time I run, I have to do this because this muscle tissue is not working and I have to brace it forever. People that run with the knee pads on – I call them knee pads because they’re huge – but you want to focus on that.
You want to focus on the long-term solutions rather than the short-term gains and staying with the short-term gains. Yes, the long-term solutions do take a little bit of time, especially if you’re dealing with the way the body wants to communicate and the body works. So it takes 7 to 14 days for your body to recycle and learn a new trait. If it hurts, it’s going to protect itself. It’s going to bind down on itself so it doesn’t move as much.
It’s going to take 7 to 14 days to unwire that and keep it unwired. You can break tissue up relatively fast. The massage therapists do it very very well. Ralpher’s do it very very well, but long-term– and that’s not a knock on them. They do very good jobs, it’s just those are short-term gains. Long-term gains is you actually taking what they did and taking it that extra further step. So furthering their work by learning how to move properly, actually walking properly, doing all those things on a constant basis, that’s what it’s all about. Taking what you’ve done, rewired something and then take it for the constant basis so you no longer need that Band-Aid, that crutch of a brace, the med that you’re using to be that anti-inflammatory. You want to start getting the body to start learning how to do this properly so you no longer need that brace, that crutch, that Band-Aid. Eventually, once you put a Band-Aid on something and you start working because the body is so adaptive, it’s going to realize that it can’t use that area anymore, it’s going to compensate.
Now that compensating area is going to turn around and start doing a different job description than it’s normally doing. So a hinge joint now is going to start turning into a mobile object rather than a straight stable object. It’s going to start doing more things with its job. Then it’s going to start tweaking and grinding, and grinding turns into mashing, and then it’s just going to not want to move because it’s just going to freeze itself. That’s the way the body is designed. It’s going to adapt until it can’t adapt anymore and then it’s going to freeze that area and make the next area adapt.
So folks, this week is all about getting you to realize, let’s stop using Band-Aid solutions for the long-term and realize what works now, works now. But where can we take it a step further? What’s the driving force? Find that out and poof, you’ve got your answer for long term pain relief. Folks, if you enjoyed this, pass it along. This is a great thing for the people that need to be pain-free. They need to hear this consistently so if you know somebody, pass it along. If you are not part of this family, the restored away family, please sign up and get me dropped in your inbox every week, giving you different tips on how to restore your body and eliminate pain for the long term and enhance your performance. Until next time, folks, bye.
