For more stretches and self-massage tips visit our YouTube channel. We hope some of our tips will help you live with less pain in your lives. If things don't get better within a week, talk to a professional. 

Give us a call...808-840-7387.

Tips are arranged in alphabetical order for easy reference.

ANKLE WEAKNESS

If you are noticing some weakness in your ankles, a great way to strengthen them is to draw out the alphabet (capital letters) with your feet. You can do this sitting down or standing up, just make sure the foot doing the work is not touching the floor.

To balance out the muscles, draw the letters the right way, then backwards. For example, if you start the A from left to right, you would start from right to left, or the B would have the bubbles on the left side of the bar when you do it backwards, and so on for all the letters.

BIG TOE JOINT PAIN

While pressing down on the tennis ball with the ball of your foot, make your toe point up towards the ceiling. It's a simultaneous thing...as you push down your toe needs to come up (not easy to do, so keep at it). Roll the ball towards the middle of the foot and sideways across the ball of the foot.

The whole thing should take you about a minute. Try to do it when you feel the pain in the joint, so you may have to do it a few times a day at first, but you should notice a big difference.

EYE STRAIN - watch our video

FOOT PAIN

a) If you are going to sleep or waking up with foot pain, get a tennis ball and roll your foot over it while standing up. Roll it back and forth, side to side, then push down on it like you are pushing the gas. If you find a particularly tender spot, stop there and keep the pressure at the pain level you are able to withstand for about 60 seconds. The whole thing should take you about 5 minutes, after which you should stretch the foot a little and you are ready to go to sleep with great relief, as well as wake up with less pain if not completely free of pain. 

b) After running on concrete for too long the feet can feel quite beat up...soak them in some hot water infused with epsom salt (found at Longs Drugs-looks like a milk carton, but it's filled with powder). Usually about 5 to 10 minutes should do the trick.

HEADACHES, NECK PAIN

a) If your neck feels tight, roll your thumb and index finger over the rim of your ears from ear lobe to top a few times and notice that tension release.

b) If you are getting a headache that's somewhat focused at the back or front of the head, apply pressure with your thumbs on the point GB20 in the picture. Increase the pressure until you get to a 7 or 8 on a pain scale of 1-10, then hold it for at least a 60 count. Do this a few times and your headache should subside. If you hold the points while moving your head back and forth in a nodding action it can loosen the muscles faster. In cases where the pain continues, work on the neck muscles as well. 

c) If you still have pain, try using our video on self-massaging the neck and follow it up with the stretches in our neck sequence video.

HIP PAIN - watch our video

KNEE PAIN

a) Front of knee pain: use the quadriceps part of the video - quads and hamstrings - self massage

b) Back of knee pain: use the hamstrings part of the video - quads and hamstrings - self massage

c) Lateral side knee pain: find tender spots along the side of your thigh (IT band), then press and hold those points at a 7 on a pain scale of 1-10 for about 60 seconds. You will also get more relief in the IT band if you work on the TFL (tensor fascia latae) muscle and glutes...use the following video to guide you - hips - self massage

d) Medial or inside knee pain: this can be caused by the gracilis (a muscle that runs from your groin to just below the knee) or the semitendinousus and semimembranousus muscles (finding these two is pretty easy...bend your knee while seated and the belly of the muscle you feel in the back of the leg comes from these two). To work on the gracilis, use your thumb to apply pressure all along the inside of the thigh. For the hamstrings use the video from (a) and (b) above.  

LOW BACK PAIN

Try one of these: complete low back, low back substitution

PLANTAR FASCIITIS AND HEEL SPURS

Watch our videos: Plantar fasciitis 1, Plantar fasciits 2

SCIATICA - watch our video for a way to stretch out the sciatic nerve

SHOULDER PAIN - watch our video

TENNIS ELBOW - watch our video for a way to stretch out the radial nerve which is often responsible for the pain 

 

MISC. & ODD TIPS

a) When vacuuming, use lunges while pushing the vacuum around to keep your back straight and get a good workout on the quadriceps and glutes.

b) Hiccups: 

To get rid of your hiccups in about a minute, all you have to do is take control over your breath, since your diaphragm is spasming. One thing you can do for this next exercise to help yourself focus on the diaphragm, is to put one of your hands over the solar plexus.

So...take a very slow breath in through the mouth, (keep your lips close together so air can't come in fast) until you feel you can't take any more air in, and at that point take a few more sips of air in (trust me, you can). Now you can choose to pause a second or just start letting your breath out through your mouth very slowly (lips close together once again) until you feel you can't push any more air out, and at that point push one more little bit of air out, it's there.