Mary Biancalana MS CMTPT LMT

First, I'd say that the book is very good overall. The pain referral diagrams, the explanations of trigger point science (such as it is at this point), the treatment techniques -- these are all very useful. There's certainly a dearth of resources relating to trigger point pain, when compared to how many people suffer from it, and this book helps fill in the gap in probably the most common place that trigger points occur -- the lower back.
I thought I'd also include a few tips that I have found useful (and wish I'd known months ago, when I first started having problems):

-- If your lower back is chronically stiff/sore, and you aren't really exactly sure why (i.e. no sudden, obvious injury occurred recently): you probably have trigger points and can benefit from trigger point therapy
-- The authors correctly note that you should apply heat to the area that you'll treat before you begin applying pressure. For a long time I skipped the heating step in the interest of saving time. This was a mistake. Once I started applying heat first, I made much better progress. This matters more as you get more advanced with your therapy and you're using a lot of pressure.
-- Finally, the only major thing I really felt that the book may have been wrong about, was the amount of time to apply pressure. They recommend anywhere from 5 to 30 seconds. However, some other sources recommend 30 seconds as a lower limit, and 5 MINUTES as an upper limit. Once I started applying pressure for greater amounts of time at a stretch (progressively using more pressure every 30 seconds or so), I started getting better results.

In summary, this book provides a very good base to get started with healing your sore, triggery muscles. Hopefully the tips above will help some people even more. Once you get comfortable with treating your lower back, you may start to realize that trigger points are really a source of many of life's common, every day aches and pains throughout the body. Applying similar principles of treatment to other body parts can help deal with pain in many areas. A working knowledge of trigger point therapy is a useful life tool, IMHO. Good luck!… (más)