Bodywork

Not pounding dents out of vehicle panels, by the by... but the deep-tissue kind.

Doing this is the longest career path of a few taken, just having overtaken powersports tech-ing (15+ yrs).

Working on and finding solutions for people who can't walk, can't wash their own hair, or reach for a can on an overhead shelf, is a pretty neat gig. Sure, being a mechanic that long helped w/ things like triage and scheduling and soft skills... but the diagnostics and approach to attack, only overlap so much... the human body and their souls housed in them, are amazing to work with daily -- esp when you find them relief from pain.

Been on a dozen forums making similar threads... and the stories about how people come to inflict, struggle / live with, and in some cases accept pain in their bodies (and find solutions w/o drugs or scalpels) never fails to interest / fascinate me. Fifteen yrs at this, gave perspective about a couple of things: 1) how hard one can work for something worthy to you (providing for and protecting family; serving the public for cause or charity)... and 2) how closely mind and body are linked... and comorbid more as rule vs. exception, in creating disease / pathology, as well as health / recovery.

To anyone here living with an old familiar trick knee from your football days (American or the rest of the world )... a slightly-frozen shoulder that's nonetheless been with you thru the hell of post-covid chaos at work... or maybe that neck crick you've given up trying to fix and instead use to sharpen your gratitude in middle age... sincerely hope you can find some relief that doesn't require such compensation, however healthy you've chosen to make its challenge.

Just like you don't wear a canoe on your head after crossing a river... if opportunity appears to get relief from pain or get back the ability of a younger You... take it. After all, the skill / attitude / strength it's taught you, has served its purpose; you'll still have it without the pain & debility. No need to carry it anymore

Any questions about such things, ask away

 

A mantra I preach at my table 'altar' daily

We evolved half a billion yrs in a quite cruel and indifferent but bountiful natural world, rewarding resilience and adaptability. So esp for lower body, our very genes encoded the need to stay ambulatory, since nature'd force us to move anyway. Withhold that, and the body malfs and rebels, expecting it. Add in-generation influences, like playing football (on the pitch) as a kid training the nervous & endocrine systems to 'know' this kind of movement / exertion, as familiar, home.

So by the time we're men >40 / women >50, not able to instantly grow new muscle tissue as in teens / 20s... staying active at ~60% level, continuing to burn the massive amts of calories we modern 1st-Worlders pack into meals... is crucial. HGH levels (human growth hormone, or somatotropin), fade past these ages... and that's vital for maintaining the young bodies we think we still have

Recently got a good lesson in this tough-love concept, nursing my stupid oversight 2 mos ago, of not remembering where my full car washbucket was and tripping over it, catching the rim right under the patella on the outside. Was able to align, reset the menisci, and release muscle splinting... but still felt weak and fragile, despite 2 mos constant challenge walking on it, until I couldn't (~30 mins max, which is easily a quarter what I did pre-injury, sans sweat).

Had to climb a flight of stairs in an office bldg day before yesterday, going to a doc appt and hating their mollasses-slow Otis elevator. One should use the stairs to add a bit of fitness routine in your office worker day; if lots of riders, faster than the elevator if <5 flrs anyway. So felt ~1K yrs old, creaking and grabbing the handrail, fogey-ing up to 4th floor. Leaving, also used the stairs.

Holy crap -- only rested 30 mins in the doc's office... but the knee felt a tonne better. Still not as effortless to load as L knee... but the improvement vs. 2 mos strengthening R knee thru walking, was astounding.

So this AM, found some stairwells close to my usual morning routine, and pushed the knee a little more, climbing and descending vs. level-ground walking. Yep, knee still felt blasted after 30 mins of that. But even several hours and a nap later (2 hrs working a muscular client; took a lot of me)... best it's ever felt. It must've wanted the greater use of the joint, that only climbing'd provide.

Tough love, applied with intelligence. My body wanted the challenge, against protocols. Another direct exp to refine them

 

Some good news re: the knee...

As above, have kept pushing it gently -- which feels awful whilst it's happening... but every time I do, its base level of comfort & performance (esp the freedom from chronic pain part) goes up.

Can't be because I'm not exercising enough w/ prior walking (try walking at military cadence for 35 - 45 mins, and not break a sweat). But the same time climbing 4 flights up / 4 down several laps at a parking structure, really puts the knee thru paces it doesn't get just walking.

Think I'll mix in a rest day of walking, if I feel the wrong kinds of feedback pushing further... but so far, adding a lap each day and stopping when I feel tired enough to stop and catch breath (at first were from pain as well). The amt I'm having to sit and reset the menisci, as this climbing and descending finds little flaws in the knee -- perhaps even breaking loose bits of scar tissue from the original insult -- is getting less and less with each push.

Not to mention, my gig has me sitting a lot, as have to keep up academically with the pace of my industry. So do all the smart things like pump calves alternately at walking pace, when sitting >20 mins at a time (brings stagnant pooled blood in lower legs back to the heart, so fresh oxygenated can replace it... avoiding adhesion, atrophy, nerve / vessel damage, and in advanced cases, cankles and lastly blackened irreversible oedema)... and keeping diet mostly greens & beans with 2d/wk non-red meat (plant protein is far less stressful for the kidneys than animal protein, chicken and fish being the best fit for my genes)... so that's helping an already not-young-for-20-yrs dude bounce back a bit faster than the typical drive-thru-haunting, rabbit-food-hating gaslighter Pancreatitis was a particularly effective deterrent against someone recovering from that kind of mental midgetry... that someone being Me, circa '80s - 2012

 

Here's a good example of a typical bodywork situation I see on the job -- conveniently in my own body.

3d ago, worked a very heavy-set client, ~50 - 60 lbs overweight for height and age. Big boy. Suffering from pain in front of hip, and radiating P (pain, for Mendel ) down back of thigh & all the way to the Achilles tendon.

Common for all clients but esp those who've recently gained weight in a short time (under 6 mos)... is the syndrome of ankle instability causing symptoms higher up -- usually P and/or loss of ROM (range of motion). This can continue to tax higher and higher structures in the body, until the buck stops in the neck and head. Usually lack of sleep appears then... and rapid degeneration later.

Thought we were talking about your problem, futurist I'm getting there -- untwist

Have a basic massage table that doesn't adjust for height in use; found the ideal ergonomic height for my frame, and locked that in 15 yrs ago. However, when clients lie supine (on their back; I never work clients prone, or on their stomachs -- that's for massage parlour face-in-donut work, and people who want neck problems when they're 40 so still sleep like they're 8) there are some difficult realities to face, esp facing a time limit (1 - 1.5 hrs, typically).

Client needed their lattissimus dorsi (lat muscle) worked, in order to remove the scapula (shoulder blade) from affecting rising compensation from the pelvis and core. So a super-easy way to get rather tough-to-remove knots from the vertical portion of the lat (which is what makes that v-shaped body desired by gym rats)... is to work a hidden one, right next to the spine. This is in he upper edge of the lat, horizontal at roughly the level of the inferior angle of the scapula. Feel under the client's back, locate the inferior angle... then trace a beeline of tension to the spine -- huuuuge knot on this client.

But of course, now we're talking lifting a 260 lb, 6' 2" guy w/ shoulders as wide as your La-Z-Boy, with nothing but my supinated (palms facing up) hands. You've connected the dots somewhat

My hands / forearms are pretty strong... but not invulnerable to overwork. Having to massage the knot in his lat out, as well as re-seat a posterior rib joint (pulled out by his rising compensation recruiting more and more faraway muscles) pulled something in my own R shoulder. Didn't feel it during work or that night... but did yesterday morning. Turns out, it's two very common TrPs (trigger points, a type of rogue knot in muscle / fascia) for anyone doing similar work: pectoralis major (pec) TrPs, against its antagonists (muscle/s that oppose another's movement of the joint), most which live medial (towards center of body) to the scapula: lower trapezius, levator scapulae, and rhomboids...

Pec major, is a major diva of the upper body If you overwork it enough to cause a TrP to form... since it's large and already highly-dominant in the upper body... it'll wreak havoc on the smaller, more numerous horizontal extensors of the upper arm (increases distance between upper arm and chest, when arm is parallel to the ground standing upright). So understandably, they freak out -- immediately creating TrPs of their own, since they're smaller and weaker. A bully picking on those weaker than it.

So, just like on the playground, you wanna fix the situation, you target the bully w/ maximum prejudice

Yep -- two massive TrPs in the R pec. Strong, weakiness-causing P in the clavicle, upon lifting upper arm past horizontal, extended laterally from the body (like a jumping jack / side-straddle-hop for you US mil / vets). Your meaty or flabby pec major, can have 4 TrPs arranged like a baseball diamond; looking from the front, I had 1st & 2nd base TrPs. Suuuuuper painful to work, but responded. There's a muscle called subclavius under the clavicle that also had signs of knotting, worked. But the big knot in lower trap in back, didn't budge... until pec minor was worked.

Find your R deltoid muscle on the front of your shoulder. Feel immediately medial to the medial edge of the deltoid... should feel a knob of bone sticking out. This is the coracoid process, and is part of your scapula -- it pokes all the way thru to the front, and is about the size and shape of your little finger. Coracoid means 'crow-like'... and if you see it in a medical anatomical skellington, it is vaguely bird-head-shaped. The pec minor muscles' three branches go from it, to ribs 3 - 5... the medial bicep is also attached here. The half-hour of hand-work under this brute's trunk and ribcage, overworked my biceps and pec minor... which cause lots of misery in the back of the shoulder.

Could be the extra exertion and diet chg recently w/ more animal protein, could've thrown my endocrine balance off a bit, as do regular exercise but all aerobic -- very little gym-like anaerobic work, which stair-climbing apparently is, at least to my IT-retirement-age body. So when this client appeared, may've been compromised into getting these knots (worked other heavy-set clients the same way all summer, no issues).

So if you do a lot of lifting / stacking boxes or crates at work, are a chef / line cook who has to make dishes in pans all day, or helped someone move their 300-lb couch down a walk-up... welcome to this and a dozen other syndromes. Didn't even feel the TrP in bicep nor pec -- when a muscle's used into P repeatedly over time, the body simply kills the P signal w/ endorphins... such are my pecs, biceps and forearm grip muscles. apparently