Treat Bursitis Pain Before, During, or After It Begins
End your suffering from bursitis with the WAVE5 team’s preparation, prevention, and recovery approach. It’s simple, effective, and can be done from the comfort of your home, at the gym, or anywhere in between.
What is Bursitis?
Bursitis is inflammation of one or many of the 150 bursa that cushion and lubricate between the tissues in the body like bones and tendons. When bursa sacs are irritated, there is increased friction in the joint (the connection point between bones) and a decrease of nutrient-rich fluids lubricating the joint. How do these tiny, gel-like sacs become aggravated? The answer is simple: putting excessive pressure on joints, which includes asking a joint to perform before it’s ready or pushing a joint beyond its threshold.
What causes Bursitis?
What are the symptoms of Bursitis?
Many “around the house” activities like gardening, raking, vacuuming, carpentry, shoveling, painting, and scrubbing increase the risk of muscular overuse and can cause bursitis. Joints that are under constant stress when sitting or standing like your hips, knees, and even shoulders are susceptible to bursitis. Although bursitis is most common in adults, ages 40 and up, athletes of all ages are prone to bursitis. Bursitis is common in athletes who participate in tennis, golf, skiing, baseball, softball, swimming, and water polo. Symptoms include stiffness and swelling, or reddish discoloration that can been seen around the joint.
How to treat Bursitis?
Are Bursitis Treatments Effective?
The most effective and efficient way to remedy bursitis is to target the muscles, tendons, and fascia surrounding and attached to the irritated joint. Muscle Hydration is the best technique to achieve this. It softens the unhappy tissues and calms your bursitis in three ways. First, it takes stress away from the joint. Second, it pumps nutrient-rich fluids in the damaged area. Third, it pulls toxins and other fluids away from the injury and back to the heart.
What is Muscle Hydration?
How can I use Muscle Hydration in my muscle recovery plan to treat bursitis?
Muscle Hydration is a pain relief and performance enhancement technique constructed around the theory that myofascial restrictions (areas of tension and tightness in the body) are damaged, sticky, and dehydrated connective tissue. The goal is to return optimal elasticity to the muscle and fascia that are contributing to the strain on the tendons and the joint.
Preparation. Your warmup is key to prepare your muscles and tendons for movement. The bursa between joints are particularly susceptible to irritation, and a solid warmup lubricates the joints thereby avoiding bursitis. A proper warmup also helps to avoid spontaneous bursitis occurrences during an activity.
To prepare your joints for movement and begin joint lubrication, use light traction. Traction is the decompression of a joint. For example, sit down and place your left hand on your lap. Use your right thumb and index finger to pinch the tip of your left middle finger. Heavy your left hand into your thigh and gently pull your middle finger away from your hand. No need to pull hard. After a few seconds, gently release the finger. Notice how your finger feels a little longer. The pulling motion decompresses the joint and creates space within the joint for fluids to flow.
Traction or decompression exercises are always meant to be done slowly. Pulling too hard or letting go too fast can damage the joint. Remember, your muscle, tendons, and fascia are a web of strong elastic tissues and like a rubber band, will snap back if released too quickly.
Prevention. Preventing bursitis is a two-step process. First, muscle and tendon preparation are key (see “Preparation” above). Second, you must hydrate the tissue after each activity. This helps your joints avoid “freezing up” or locking, which both compromise the bursae, joint, and the surrounding soft tissue.
Muscle Hydration targets the painful area by gradually introducing breathable pressure followed by gently releasing that pressure. This pressure-release acts as a “pump” to pull intercellular fluid into the myofascial restrictions. Applying this “pump” throughout the region warms up the tissue and gives you more energy, flexibility, and strength to perform.
Alleviation. Alleviating the onset of bursitis pain is similar to many other sudden injury protocols: compress, rest, and elevate. Although these methods are effective, most bodies need more. To decrease the pain or sudden onset of bursitis, the WAVE5 team recommends the following two recovery techniques.
First, apply gradual pressure (Muscle Hydration) on the tissue and muscles surrounding the nearest two joints to the painful area. For example, if you have bursitis in your elbow, target the muscles around the shoulder–biceps, deltoid, and triceps–and the wrist– flexors, extensors and hand muscles. Spending about one minute on each area will (1) remove tension on the joint, (2) soften the muscles, and (3) calm the entire region.
Second, apply heat for five minutes to the two joints closest to the area of pain (ten minutes total). Begin by applying heat to the joint farthest from the heart. After five minutes, remove the heat and apply it to the joint closest to the heart. If you have bursitis in the elbow, start by applying heat to your wrist. The heat pulls fluids beyond the elbow and into the wrist, increasing the circulation of fluids through the elbow. Next, apply heat to your shoulder. This helps to attract the fluids back toward your heart, through your wrist, elbow, and shoulder. This flushing reduces the pooling of fluids and reduces swelling throughout the bursitis-impacted joint.
Bursitis is a joint irritation that can be prevented or, if already onset, alleviated. Preparation is the greatest offense to avoid bursitis. Increasing the flexibility of your myofascial tissue through Muscle Hydration enhances the mobility of the joint which in turn makes movement easier and keeps joints fluid. Muscle care means less bursitis flair ups and an ongoing active lifestyle.
