AERIAL ASK AN EXPERT FITNESS HEALTH

Acupuncture: Aerial exercise without any pain

Acupuncture could effectively relieve tension or injury without the use of medication

Did you ever think that acupuncture could effectively relieve tension or injury without the use of medication?

Dealing with the pole and aerial acrobatics is a delight. The freedom and satisfaction you feel when doing your favorite and very demanding air activities, without fear of pain and restrictions of movement is something invaluable.

But there are times when suddenly, after your exercise when you had not practiced a good warm-up routine or sometimes gradually and sneakily, due to repeated movements where you don’t uphold the right stance in the body, you felt a pain and as such you had to restrict the range of your movements, but also due to the frequency of doing your favorite exercise. This does not allow you the progress in pole or in aerial acrobatics, something that you so much desire. You fear that it will become worse and think that in order for it to pass you must abstain from them. When you feel the source of the pain, great sensitivity can be cause to the tough, but also can this pain can effect pain in other neighbouring areas. You note that the range of motion in your favorite exercises are limited, but the particular muscle group, from where pain emanated, is weakened.

Many times we can say that the muscle is ‘tense’, sometimes it can be referred to as “being effected by cold winds”, or it is just “injury”. What matters though is that small groups of muscle fibers palpitate and remain in this condition (trigger points), resulting in a reduction of perfusion of the specific-spot.

This situation leads to the release of local substances that create the feeling of pain. The restrictions on movement that the trigger points result in can create corresponding problems elsewhere on the body, as they set into motion other corresponding mechanical movements, in order to avoid pain and protect the suffering of the muscle. Corresponding actions created are likely to overload other muscle groups, healthy as of that specific moment, which were not used to such movements.

When this happens, often resorting in abstaining from the exercise for relaxation purposes, or taking pain/muscle relaxants and massage and physiotherapy are all method utilized. All of them need time and the result is questionable.

A method that can expedite the result is deactivating these trigger points with acupuncture.

The procedure is the following: The doctor feels the area for the most sensitive and hard muscle points along with the general area that hurts. A very fine and sterile disposable needle via a specific technique is used which attempts to cause automatic rhythmic contractions of muscle fibers, something like shaking. This, if achieved, is tantamount to the solution or relaxation of trigger points. The patient will feel tense for a few hours, such as the feeling after vigorous exercise, but the other acute pain will have subsided. You may need 2-3 repeat sessions to complete the therapeutic effect.

Whether the trigger points are caused due to overtraining, a bad attitude, chronic stress from daily activities or abrupt movement, acupuncture restores the mechanical equilibrium of body and soon you will be back … in the air!

About the author

Karolina koliopoulou

Ourania Karolina Koliopoulou is a graduate and a doctorate of the Medical School of Athens, specializing in Midwifery and Gynaecology along with Biomedical Acupuncture. She is an accredited instructor of birthlight yoga for pregnant women and has a European licence in Homeopathic medicine. She has participated in a plethora of publications both in Greek as well as in Foreign Science Journals, in medical conferences and in Refresher training. She has taken part in programs designed to educate adolescents, in televised informative shows on medical matters and has written a number of informative medical articles in Journals with varying thematology. She works pro bono and provides her medical services for the SOS foundations for children. She has also dabbled with dance and is a runner of medium distances.

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