Well, if you're aware that you don't have muscle knots, how do you expect a massage therapist to remove knots that aren't there?

Ideally you fix a muscle knot which fixes the muscle tension/muscle compensation patterns which stops these dysfunctional muscles pulling on joints.

Ask lexbishop above. I'm not certain as I'm not a success story yet lol.

OP i would start with a soft tissue person to do some dry needle work to unstick the adhesion and then combine physio for long term muscle imbalance and also get a cheap ($30) TENS machine for maintenance.

Occupational therapist but don't work in soft tissue but had the training during school.

People are shocked by the dry needle and TENS combo being able to 'unstick' a muscle

Makes sense, I'm guessing your posture issues never came back?

So, in your case, how long did it take to roll out all of those knots? (30 seconds, 1 hour, hours over a few weeks?)

For the front delt, you're releasing it with a ball right?

For the neck, did you do chin tucks? I recall doing weighted neck curls.

Loll! That sucks, you should've copied it haha. That used to happen to me all the time.

Either your text was far too long. Or something in your text was inappropriate. (I remember I was talking about back to the future and an error came up. I had to delete a couple of words about back to the future and it worked, took like an hour to figure out)

This site bans completely random things from being said lol.

I'll send you a message haha

I see, I think I'm on path to just do a hardcore muscle release session with a lacrosse ball.

However, that TENS unit thingy. Is it worth it? It's not that expensive, but it sounds like it's good?

I haven’t had chronically tight traps but I’ve been to a lot of PT over the years for tendonitis in a few places. Dry needling my calves was the most effective way to release the tightness there.

So dry needling your calves just made the tightness go away completely? Were there knots/fascia balls or did the needles do something else?

It can cause problems all over the place - trap connects to the base of the skull, neck, spine and shoulder lmao.

It's up there with the hip capsule for causing the most compensation in the body.

I agree with the use of tennis/racquet/lacrosse balls for rolling and trigger point. I recommend taping two balls together into a physio "peanut". You can roll up and down on this to massage the muscles, or hit your trigger points. Try a glute bridge while your laying on this dug into your shoulders, lawd.

When mine is real bad I'll load a barbell with weight and while facing along the bar stand up into it to mash my top of trap into the immovable bar, then roll the bar back and forth in the j cups.

I see, thanks for explaining. So have you released an upper trap, then magically have your whole body feeling better?

So, what about upper trap dysfunction causing pelvic alignment issues? (Like, having enough compensation patterns from the upper trap to travel down the chain and start up APT?)

I feel as if that peanut thing would only work for the base of the skull area. I tried it before, it's too narrow to reach the upper traps symmetrically.

Yeah, that was my initial idea. Tape a lacrosse ball to a low pull up bar and squat into it. I mentioned that earlier haha.

Why would you be rolling the bar?

APT / Lower cross syndrome are driven by tightness or imbalance in the muscles that connect to the hips "bucket" and tip it forward or backwards. Traps are a long way off in the kinetic chain I doubt it would drive anything in the pelvis.

A peanut is very effective and costs nearly nothing, I'd give it a try, you'll be pleasantly surprised. I prefer it even when I'm only "using" one ball since that shape won't move around as easy where a single ball can squirt out from under you as you're rolling.

Bar smashes are pretty intense so introducing a little movement across the muscle feels better than just hammering straight into it. It's only like a 1/4 rotation on the bar but that little back and forth really lets you work the knot.

Awesome! Thanks for the information!

One part about APT that's confusing me a bit is the lower back. Like, is it tight as a result of the pelvic tilt? Or should I ignore the tight sensation and strengthen it with back extensions or something?

But where would this "peanut" be able to massage? Since it can't roll (since the peanut is 2 balls taped together), how can it hit the upper traps?

Thanks.

Hi MrBourbon, looking back on this, I have a question.

So, why do your traps get "real bad" in the first place? I'm assuming you lift and have good posture. So are your traps getting knotted on a repeat prescription because they're getting overloaded through tasks/sports or do u just have unresolved imbalances? (Knots appear when muscles exceed their endurance capacity for a while apparently)

Thanks.

Just seeking an answer for this question. Which is specific to each individual.

No not at all actually, I tried responding for over 35 minutes, got the same permission error each time. Must've been something in my wording but I gave up :/

If there's a "read request", u can see I saw ur message like 2 minutes later.


Ur responses are awesome, don't feel like it was wasted time.

Didn't work for me.

So, did releasing your upper traps open up ur chest/front delts?

I'm debating on if female parlours are worth it or not. Maybe it's skill? I hope they're strong, I remember one review said the masseuse was panting :/

Ah I see, do u massage out muscles often or is this a 1 time thing for u?


EDIT: Saw ur edit on deadhangs, yeah, I swing through my doorway 30+ times a day haha. Doesn't do anything but it's a habit which could be doing good.

Look up PRI exercises