Do you wonder why you keep struggling with lower back pain despite many chiropractic treatments and therapies? If yes, it could be because the treatment might have focused on the spine or hips alone and no attention was paid to your pelvic floor muscles. Many muscles are attached to and support your pelvis and lower back. Many patients can benefit from therapeutic bodywork that also factors in myofascial release to address the issue of lower back pain.
Most people don’t have any idea about what myofascial release therapy is. Thus, today, we will discuss myofascial release therapy in detail and discuss how it can help in reducing back pain.
What is Myofascial Release Therapy?
Myofascial release is a therapy technique that focuses on pain that arises from myofascial tissues – tough membranes that cover, connect, and support your muscles. This technique is often used in combination with different massages.
Myofascial pain is different from other types of pain as it occurs in trigger points, which are linked to stiff anchored areas covered in myofascial tissues. However, the pain caused by a trigger point is difficult to localize without proper knowledge and training.
Trained and qualified massage therapists can locate the myofascial areas that cause pain. These areas feel stiff and fixed instead of being elastic and movable when checked under light manual pressure. These areas are believed to restrict muscle and joint movements, which further contribute to widespread muscle pain.
When focused manual pressure and stretching are applied during myofascial release therapy, it helps loosen up restricted movement, and indirectly helps in reducing pain.
How does myofascial release can help relieve lower back pain?
Many professionals miss the link between lower back pain and the structure that involves your pelvic floor muscles and tailbone. Most women who experience regular lower back pain also suffer from pelvic floor dysfunction. It can be often difficult to figure out which comes first – the tension in the pelvic floor or the back pain.
Your pelvic floor helps stabilize the core and the lower back. Thus, when your back is in pain, the pelvic floor muscles may get tightened in an effort to try and protect the affected area. But that can cause problems as it can lead to overuse or over-clenching of the pelvic floor. In other cases, pelvic dysfunction may occur first and affect the stability and mobility of your spine, which in turn lead to lower back pain.
In both scenarios, lower back pain and pelvic floor dysfunction impact and reinforce each other. Therefore, both areas must be addressed properly.
Massage therapists can help you reduce lower back pain by addressing both areas using different techniques such as myofascial release and trigger point therapies. Both of these techniques may seem the same as both of them address stubborn muscle knots, but they are different. While myofascial release involves slower stretching and dynamic movement across large areas of tissue, trigger point therapy applies direct pressure to specific muscle knots.
If you are also suffering from lower back pain that is not going away with regular therapies and treatments, you should consider evaluating your pelvic floor area and lower back to see if you can benefit from therapeutic bodywork that involves myofascial release or trigger point therapy or both.