Muscle Release Low Back

Question

Dear TAI Experts:

Hello, I have an important question as a therapist – how do you release muscles in low back? I have lots of clients who have low back problems. Thanks for your help.

Answer

Without doing an examination I am not able to comment on specific conditions. However, I would like to give you the following advice. In “releasing” a muscle, I am assuming that you are meaning to decrease muscle tone and increase extensibility or flexibility of the muscle. There are many ways to release a muscle, including the use of heat to help increase blood flow and tissue temperature to allow the muscle to relax. You can also perform soft tissue mobilization or myofascial release, which can also increase tissue temperature and allow enough pressure through the muscle fibers to help break up adhesions in the tissue and allow them to reorganize. There are cases in which you would want to release muscles, such as if you were to pull your hamstring muscle more than 6 weeks ago and it remains tight. In this case there is likely scar tissue built up that is inhibiting the muscle from working to its potential, and breaking up the scar tissue would help to reorganize the tissue, decrease pain, and eventually improve function. However, there may be a muscle that shows increased tone because it is working overtime to help stabilize an area because of an underlying problem with a joint. For example, the piriformis muscle, which is a large muscle in the gluteal region, may show increased tone secondary to stabilizing the pelvis. In this case you would want to focus more on strengthening and improving muscle balance rather than releasing one of the muscles that are helping to stabilize the joint. I would recommend visiting your local physical therapist to further educate you on this topic and show you specific ways to improve your low back pain. Physical therapists in the orthopedic field work heavily with low back patients and are trained in finding muscle imbalances, weaknesses, joint restrictions, etc which may be leading to your pain. I hope this information helps!

Krista Vigeland, PT, DPT