Why do these muscles get tight and cause back pain or ache?
In many cases of lumbar pain, the tightness and stiffness of hamstrings, glutes and middle glutes play a significant role. In these cases, it is also quite frequent that the shoulders and upper trapezius are affected by pain.
Our hamstrings have a significant tendency to become very stiff because of different factors: namely, in case of a pre-existent stiffness problem concerning lower legs, ankles and tibialis, there is a greater muscular involvement for the hamstrings and middle glutes during everyday actions like prolonged walking. Another factor of relevance is the lack of stretching, especially after workout sessions involving these muscular groups, which will consequently suffer a more significant contraction.
All the nerves that we use to move our legs come from our lumbar spine and lumbar area in general; therefore, if the nerves in this area get pinched, our legs muscles will tighten as in a domino effect.
On the other hand, by having the hamstrings muscles tight, the nerves that pass through these muscles and innervate them will also get affected, especially the sciatic nerve, which passes under our gluteus maximus and middle glutes. When pinched, it will automatically tend to tighten up these muscles.
This phenomenon happens because by accumulating tension in our muscles, we also create tension through our peripheral nervous system, which will spread to other surrounding muscles. However, this process can also be exploited the other way around: just right now, try to relax your brain for a few seconds, and you will straight away feel that all your skeletal muscles are starting to relax.
For the same reason, it is also imperative to meditate. It is scientifically proved that, after an appropriate meditation session, all our body muscles will get released, while our mind will be relieved from stress. When we meditate, we reach a certain level of stillness and peace in our mind and emotions, automatically allowing a significant relaxation of our central nervous system and, therefore, a peripheral nervous system and our muscles relaxation.
In almost every case, when a patient comes to me with pain in the lumbar and shoulders areas, I usually start from the feet, using the reflexology science to release those areas, and then moving forward to do the legs applying pressure on the meridians; finally, I manipulate the hamstrings, gluteus maximus and middle glutes. Patients usually get at least 50% recovery using these three techniques on their legs and feet. To continue the treatment, I will then work on both arms, shoulders, full back and neck, applying muscle extensions and manual therapy with medium or deep pressure.
If the patient's emotional condition is not severely altered from a single treatment, there will be an overall benefit of 70 to 100% recovery.
This kind of treatment can also be applied in delicate situations where patients suffer from chronic degenerative conditions, such as multiple sclerosis, osteoporosis, or fibromyalgia. The application of the treatment must be, in these cases, very gentle to avoid causing more pain and worsening their general conditions. Still, it usually makes all my patients leave the clinic feeling much better compared with when they walked into the treatment room.
Sometimes, my patients are going through heavy emotional times, and none of the manual treatments would be very effective, as the source of their pain is not a physical problem but emotional distress. When this is the case, I straightaway advise the patients to receive one (or more, if needed) Pranic Healing session(s), to work on the energy field that is causing the problem and remove any energy congestion.
The efficacy of Pranic Healing sessions very much depends on the patient. Some patients show a profound proposition and interest in receiving them, and they often solve their problems and move forward very quickly. However, sometimes patients are extraneous to body energy concepts and therefore very sceptical. The recovery process can go very slowly and maybe not even reach a 100% recovery in these cases. When more severe problems or pathology arises, patients might even worsen their condition in rare cases.
Case Study: best result obtained
A 37 years old professional man came to the clinic about two months ago and booked a 30 min treatment with me. He was in good body condition, keeping a regular exercise routine, but his skeleton muscles tended to stay quite tight and sometimes cause pain.
His pain was mainly focused on his lower back and shoulders, especially the right.
I treated him in a pronated position, and straightaway, I found out that his hamstrings were extremely hard, as well as his middle glutes.
Starting the treatment, I first applied some reflexology. I then focused on the hamstrings, losing them up with manual therapy. While I was working on them, I kept asking for feedback from the patient to see if the pain on his back and shoulders was starting to release, and he reported a tension release on these areas of about 10%.
Then I moved to manipulate the middle glutes, and he reported that the release of the pain areas was now increased to 30%.
At this point, I thoroughly treated his back, and by the end of the session, a pain and tension release of up to 80% was reached.
We repeated this therapy for six sessions of 30 min each once a week, and after the last one, he had fully recovered and stabilised.
After the sixth therapy session, we maintained a 30 min treatment every 2 or 3 weeks, and my last report outlined that the patient was in excellent condition.
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