The Big Four Treatments For Relief: Muscle Strain

Muscle strains are very common injuries but we get questions all the time on what to do with them. There are 2 different types of muscle strains:

1. Trauma or pulled muscles
2. Non-trauma or what we can repetitive trauma injuries

Pulled muscles might have visible swelling, redness, bruising. If you have any of the visible swelling or bruising you need to get it checked out to make sure it is not more serious.

Repetitive trauma injuries have no obvious mechanism of injury but happen due to repetitive motions.

Most common pulled muscles

• Hip flexors
• Calves
• Hamstrings
• Groin
• Quads
• Lower back

Most common repetitive injuries

• Lower back
• Elbow pain
• Neck pain

4 tips on what to do

1. Topical= Biofreeze and analgesics
   1. Advil for acute injuries (every 4 hours)
   2. Aleve for more chronic injuries (every 12 hours)
2. Ice 1^st 72 hours or 3 days= 20 minutes every hour
3. After that ice/heat alternating= 15-20 minutes each
4. Epsom salt baths after day 3

Treatment

• Soft tissue work to reduce buildup of scar tissue
  • Active Release Technique
  • Graston Technique
• Cold Laser to reduce inflammation

More Tips

• Heat to warm up muscle followed by light stretching, foam rolling, ball rolling
• Return to activity based on symptoms
  • The healing time is 4-6 weeks typically