Have you ever been pushed or pressed on a part of a muscle and you've gone "Oww! That's shooting right down my arm!"? Well if you have you most likely hit upon a 'trigger point'.

A trigger point can simply be the most tender part of a muscle that is generally aching or tight, or it can be a point that refers pain to another part of your body. The diagram here shows referring trigger points on front of the neck muscles (sternocleidomastoid in this case) which are the root cause of pain around the eye, temple, head, and sternum - in this case.

So I may get clients in with specific pain patterns and by treating the trigger points first I can get the pain shifted faster and more effectively. Generally trigger point therapy consists of pressing down on the tissue until you feel about eight out of ten on the pain scale and keeping the pressure on for ten or fifteen seconds. After a little break to get your breath back I then repeat this a couple of times, and what happens is that the amount of pressure I put on to acheive that same pain response doubles and trebles and that signals that the trigger point is on the way to disappearing. Your body is healing itself.