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Recent Posts
- Confusing the benefits of salty and non-salty baths
- “I’ve tried to interpret the findings of the best physiologists and translate them into sound practices. That’s made me a radical.”
- Dr. Tim Taylor has contributed a new chapter to my book, Save Yourself from Trigger Points & Myofascial Pain Syndrome!
- And again! More muscle knot squishing science, different experiment, same results
- (Newer than new) evidence that squishing trigger points works
- Jedi mind trick turns a muscle relaxant drug into a stimulant
- Wishful thinking does not get much more wishful than this
- A trigger point is almost mistaken for a tumor
- WARNING! Traumeel contains .00000000000000001% pure death!
- The three most common words in massage therapy are pointless
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Category Archives: massage therapy
(Newer than new) evidence that squishing trigger points works
An upcoming issue of Journal of Bodywork & Movement Therapies will include a new study of trigger point squishing. I was lucky to get a look at a final draft, thanks to connections at The Pressure Positive Company, the massage tool manufacturer that supplied the tools.
This experiment has the simple elegance of a good science-fair [...]
Also posted in massage, massage tools, research, self-massage, self-treatment, therapy, treatment, trigger points Leave a comment
The three most common words in massage therapy are pointless
The pointless words are: “You’re really tight!” A simple science experiment published in Journal of Pain clearly shows (finally!) that muscle hardness correlates (very!) badly with muscle sensitivity. Read the article.
Also posted in debunkery, massage Leave a comment
New article: Should You Drink Water After Massage?
After getting this question from a reader for about the bazillionth time, I decided it was finally time to write an article about it. A little salamander sass is included at no extra charge, as usual.
Should You Drink Water After Massage? Only if you’re thirsty!
Also posted in debunkery, detoxification, hydrotherapy, massage, nutrition, self-massage Leave a comment
“Perfect” spots? Not hardly: an uncomfortable legacy
Many years ago I set out to write about the “perfect spots” for massage, and I began a series of articles. Some of those became the most visited and popular articles on this website. They are alarmingly close to becoming my “legacy.” I have probably received more positive feedback about them than anything else I [...]
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A simple headache success story (to re-introduce the perfect spots)
Yesterday my cat, Cali, woke me up with a particularly insistent feed-me-now yowl. Normally I would find this irritating, but yesterday she was doing me a favour, because my neck was in a crazy position and I was cooking up a violent headache. Some wee muscles behind my head were in a shortened position, and [...]
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New directory of trigger point therapy and muscle pain resources
I have finally published a list of resources relevant to trigger point therapy and muscle pain. I avoided this for many years, because I am generally not impressed by what’s available (to both patients and professionals), especially online resources. I remember a slightly testy conversation with someone from an American organization a couple years ago [...]
Also posted in finding help, manual therapy, massage, massage tools, pain, regulation, trigger points Leave a comment
Research in the massage therapy field is still in its infancy
Harriet Hall, RMT, PDP, from “Vision of Specialization for Registered Massage Therapists”:
Research in the massage therapy field is still in infancy partly due to a lack of research infrastructure and a research tradition. The result is that most registered massage therapists are not accustomed to reading, analyzing, conducting, writing case studies or applying research in [...]
Also posted in pain, research, science Leave a comment
Science experiment shows that massage actually interferes with lactic acid removal
One of the classic claims of massage therapy is that it can help you by flushing “toxins” and metabolic wastes from your muscles, especially the most famous one: lactic acid. This is not a difficult thing to test — the principle is science-fair simple, just compare metabolic waste products with and without massage involved — [...]
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Your chronic pain may not have a solution
Recently a reader asked for my opinion on a website about a miracle cure for some serious, chronic muscle pain — one of the most common kinds of requests I get. It was one of the most extreme example of a too-good-to-be-true cure I have seen in a while, and that’s saying something. I’ve been [...]
Also posted in debunkery, manual therapy, quackery, treatment Leave a comment
And again! More muscle knot squishing science, different experiment, same results