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

 

Yeah, esp in this thread about med stuff, wanted to reinforce your gentle reccie to define the esoteric terms, for all deciding if they should read on or not No problem, done and done...

If you were directing this at Mendel, disregard.

If me... well TL;DR-ified... lifting up strongly w/ arms in front of you -- whether one moment of high strain for the number of fibers involved, or months to years of constantly doing the same on a lesser level -- can exhaust those front-of-upper-body muscles into shens. See it pretty regularly on the table...

Been doing this gig a long time so muscles are rather used to it... but 1) am getting into older middle age, so atrophy's a constantly-accelerating phenomenon weakening muscles / fascia / other connective tissue like ligaments and tendons, and 2) even someone highly-accustomed to a certain routine using those muscles hard, can still lock them up into debilitating pain once in a while. It's why heavy equipment operators, smashing their hams sitting on them 30 yrs, go to bend over and pick up their grand-daughter, and get that classic lumbar bite. A classic Grandpa / Grandma phenom, from one event / years / both painting your lower body / lower back, into a corner

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Some news on today's stair-climbing workout, & effect on the bum knee...

Didn't sleep well at all last night -- not sure why, but adding a nice broccoli stem coleslaw and a tofu-kombu-miso-soup dinner seemed to be the trigger, not to mention the shoulder issue. Perhaps too fast a jink back to the militant kind of meals that got me thru covid (and some of the nicest compliments about my bloodwork / physical workup I'd gotten since getting sick (panc, apnea, kidneys). Actually lay on the bed and fell asleep uncharacteristically, in early evening like 1730 (5:30pm) just blown-out exhausted after wash/waxing the car. Then woke, no CPAP on, no shower... at midnight. Hasn't happened to me since May, starting CPAP.

So warshed my third point (and the rest of me, to be clear ), got CPAP donned, and tried to fall back asleep... but like pre-CPAP days... couldn't do until way, waaay too late. Woke at 0615, ~1.5hrs past usual wake-up. Great... still felt tired too, as makes sense disturbing my sleep routine that much. Welp, need to find something else to segueway into the old workout diet (greens & beans -- allowed running 2 mi / 3.2km, in 13 mins flat, aged 50... so given time the body can do stuff on this strict diet)...

So had a bit of brekkies (tofu chili, kale salad w/ EVOO / ACV), drove to the parking structure, and got ready to test this knee.

Jesus H, this thing was built when I still lived on island the second time, meaning late '90s... so all three staircases are predictably rusted 30 yrs later in the relentless salt air (and even faster now that 30-mph-sustained winds at least 3 - 4x a week, are the rule). But man, walking on the one protruding out into the airstream most unprotected... feels literally like urban spelunking. It's so creaky, when you step down esp furthest from the stable floor, doesn't make that bong metal-bolted-to-rebar'd-concrete resonance -- you hear and feel, cracking. So whilst using this corner 4-flr staircase really adds to the workout (makes me walk to / from it to the other stairwells)... don't think I'll be goading it into Fortnite-like catastrophic collapse anytime soon; will leave that to the homeless who leave their stinky calling cards on it dead of night...

The knee feels less right than on Sat, for sure (skip Sunday as detailing the car's more than enough workout for it). But had a brainwave about why, so needed to test it.

When your body becomes accustomed to long periods of inactivity (in opposition to the sort of constant, evolutionary movement that makes you stronger / more resilient)... it's not just atrophy that's the issue. Remember your body's always trying to adjust its routine to what you do most -- so a long period of the same, less-strenuous / less-active thing, will create an over-specialisation to that routine. You can use this to your advantage: if your routine is a bunch of different, smart activities that make the body react and specialise to diversity... that's what it'll expect and trim down its logistics to adapt to.

The one thing that's really scary about this knee, is I had no idea, when it was going to decide not to work. I know what a gait in alignment feels like, and don't even have to think about it, been doing it so long (walking w/ the inside edge of your feet, parallel to each other, should-width apart). But if the terrain forces adaptation... the knee can slightly twist outside alignement, irritate the ligaments reporting to spinal cord what's happening in the knee... which can elicit a 'trick' response -- where muscles across the injured joint, instantly decide not to work. This has on two occasions since starting this stair thing, caused that 'whoa!' and grab for the handrail.

Yep, same-old trying the stairs again, skipping a step climbing (but never down). This forces glute max (gluteus maximus, yer peachy third-point) and hams (semitendinosus, semimebranosus, and both legs of biceps femoris), which I sit on hours daily reading when not working, to exert past the walking routine and anything else I'd done since stopping running in '23 (had to stop when knees began to bother me after 3y of daily running -- not strange for an over-50 trying for my aged-21 2-mi average from Army days ).

Okay. So what would fade into uselessness not using it, besides the physical parts of the knee? Simple: using it like a healthy knee...

So how do I use this parking structure to do that? Hmm.

I've used a protocol for people with severe injury to the legs, like burns and workplace accidents... get amazing results, just doing a couple of things taught by my mentor in this gig, 10 - 15 yrs ago. You have the client lay on this soft but center-firm foam roller, ~8" in diameter and a meter long. Have the roller support the sacrum, or bone at the base of the spine, as well as the head -- 1 meter's usually long enough for most people. Now, have them find their balance point atop this roller, and try to get that point, then let go of all muscular effort keeping you there, balanced and relaxed.

Now, suddenly use one leg, to push you off that spot, and feel yourself fall a fraction of a second... then catch yourself. Repeat on the other side. Cycle to both side, 10x. Mind you, this take literally 5 mins.

Now have the client stand up unassisted, if possible. Seen people so dependent on their canes they didn't want it far from their grasp, get to their feet with it... then allow it taken away. Something in the CNS (central nervous system), uses the sensory feedback from falling and catching yourself, to revise its 'map' of where the body is in space. Granted, not every client will get the movie-worthy result... but in all, some improvement to ambulation happens, and continues to improve, when they learn to do this regularly.

Okay -- what's my balance like? Saw the rubber stops in front of the empty parking spaces on the top level, perfect. On my way from stairwell-to-stairwell, divert to those 30m rows of stops... and attempt to walk on them, like a tightrope.

First 3 - 4, couldn't even make it halfway before needing to step off -- boy was I rusty. But by the third visit to the top level, even tired I'd managed to stay on all 60m of stops. By the second attempt, could feel my core begin to get involved in ways I'd forgotten it could do. That's what sitting in one position most of the day not working sporadically can result in, even with 30mins of walking every day. You must challenge the body, or it's literally 'use or lose'...

Walking on the stairs was markedly better, even after just 3 visits to the 'tightrope'. That wonkiness, was going away, and the knee felt a bit stronger, if still sore after several laps of this gauntlet. Staying in the daily workout, I think