November 2009

Life After Pain Heroes – Ron the Gold Medallist

by Jonathan

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I’ve had the pleasure to know Ron, a 3x Decathalon gold medallist. Ron Johnson won first gold medal in World Masters Games in Italy in 2008. In Sept. 2009 in World Masters Games in Sydney he won 3 golds for the pole vault, javelin , and pentathalon which is five events, Ron won two silvers for Discus throwing and weight penthalon.

In the interview above Ron describes how he overcame the pain of stents in his veins to win multiple gold medals. This is a fantastic example of a man who’s risen above huge challenges to do what he loves.

Click the ‘play’ icon on the audio player above to listen to Ron tell his story.

Ron, 4x Gold Medallist

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Why Do Trigger Points Come Back?

by Jonathan

This is a really common question. Trigger points come back for a variety of reasons – and you can take steps to help stop them returning.

Things you need to look out for are:- bad posture, stress breathing, repetitive movements. For example, if you work every day at a computer, you need to examine very carefully your workplace setup.

If your workplace setup is causing tension in your muscles, then no matter how much you release your triggers, they’ll keep returning.

Stress breathing occurs when you use the muscles in your shoulders and upper chest for breathing, rather than your abdominal and diaphragm muscles. These muscles are less efficient, and if you use them all day long, this can create trigger points that keep coming back.

Bad posture means that you’re continually holding tension. Constant tension will stress muscles, which then leads to trigger points – almost as a defensive mechanism. If you want to see excellent sitting posture – look at how a baby sits.

Babies have to sit with perfect posture – their posture muscles are still weak and their heads are heavy. They sit with their head perfectly balanced on their shoulders. That’s the kind of effortless posture you need to help trigger points stay away.

For improving posture, the Alexander Technique is also very useful.

Below is an excerpt from an interview I did on how to stop triggers coming back. (The full interview in on my membership site.)

Click on the triangle below to listen.

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PS. to go deeper into these techniques you may want to have a look at a course I’ve made that teaches self treatment of trigger points.

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Trigger Points and Stiffness

This is a fascinating connection. Active trigger points are common, but latent trigger points occur even more often. Latent myofascial triggers are dormant points. They aren’t causing pain right now, but they certainly could in the future. What isn’t so well known is that latent trigger points can be cause of stiffness in your muscles. [...]

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Does Trigger Point Treatment Have to Hurt?

Is it necessary for it to be painful? Well, in most cases, no. It took me a long time to come round to this way of thinking, as I explain in the video below. But often the most effective trigger point release aren’t in fact at all painful. It’s just a question of working with [...]

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