I can’t tell you how many times my husband tells me he’s pulled or otherwise strained a muscle when working out. It’s pretty common, especially the older you get and the less you stretch. As I always remind my hubby when he complains of this, you MUST stretch your muscles adequately before working out.

Read this past story about the importance of flexibility as you age for more on how vital this is to continued health and mobility as you age.

You can do a more dynamic stretch, like jogging in place or doing something that gets the blood moving, or if you’re going to do something like yoga, static stretches should be just fine. The key is in holding them long enough to actually stretch the muscle. Many people don’t hold the stretch long enough, and the muscle isn’t “pliable” enough to avoid injury or strain when they begin the hard stuff.

Stretching after your workout is absolutely crucial, and too many people either skip this step or they don’t do it for a long enough period. Stretching the muscles back out after they’ve been contracted for long periods of time is important in stretching the muscle back out and avoiding later pain and discomfort.

You should have a stretch session of at least five minutes after every workout, and make sure your muscles feel loosened back up when you’re done.

One of the worst muscles on me after working out tends to be my hamstrings. They are always tight. So I find myself stretching those several times throughout the day when I’ve worked out. It really helps to make my whole body feel loose and relaxed when just stretching that one large muscle.

Getting in a sauna is also a huge help. We use our infrared sauna all the time after a hard workout. It really relaxes you and deeply penetrates your muscles so that they stretch much more easily and are less prone to soreness and injury after a hard workout.

You can also sweat out some of those toxins that you may not have gotten out of your system during the workout, which helps to reduce muscle pain and discomfort after working out.

I love to get a massage when my muscles are tight. I actually prefer to get a massage after a hard day at work, which is when my muscles are most tight. I have a desk job, but sitting all day is far worse for your muscles than moving around all day. They stiffen up and become painful and contorted from stress and sitting in one position for too long.

If you want to read more about back pain and sitting too long – read about how exercise helps control back pain, a previous post I wrote about the challenges of having a desk job and having neck and back pain as I do from previous car accidents.

I’ve suffered back pain for the majority of my life, thanks to early back problems starting before I was twenty, to more back and neck pain thanks to two accidents where I got whiplash in my early twenties.  I’m sure that I’m predisposed to back pain anyway, and that is part of the reason that I’ve experienced so much back, shoulder and neck pain.

One factor remains constant though. I have always noticed  dramatic improvement in my back and neck pain when I am working out regularly.  Actually, studies have shown the low impact activity helps to decrease back pain.  This is because when you get up and move around, your muscles have less opportunity to get stiff and cramp up.

When I sit down all day long at my work desk, or if I’ve had a really lazy day at home, I notice that I’m totally stiff and have a hard time getting comfortable. Whereas, if I’ve worked out that day, everything feels looser, and more limber and flexible.

There is also the element of heat. When you exercise, your muscles actually get warm. This makes them more pliable, and certainly may also lend itself to muscle tension relief.  When the muscle fibers are warmer like this, they tend to help us feel more relaxed, and the muscles to let go of that stored up tension.

In addition to actually stimulating the muscles and helping to warm them and prevent stiffness, exercise also produces endorphins. Why would these “feel good” chemicals matter for pain?

Well, endorphins are actually sort of like the “antidote” to pain, so exercising will also help reduce the chemical reactions that cause pain, or offset them by producing their natural antidote, endorphins.

Plus, endorphins just make you feel good all the way around, so they help lift your mood and take your mind off of the pain that might have otherwise been bugging you.

Doing this can help you to avoid other common remedies for back pain and neck pain relief which unfortunately involve dangerous drugs and OTC pain killers.  Many OTC (Over the Counter) pain relief pills actually can harmful effects on the stomach, the lining of the digestive tract, and the liver over time.

Additionally, topical numbing creams absorb into the skin with their active ingredients, which aren’t the healthiest thing either. If you want something totally natural that can help ease the pain, try either using those microwaveable bags that help heat the pain away, or a sauna or hot tub to help penetrate the muscles with soothing heat to loosen the muscles.

My husband and I have owned our infrared (FIR) sauna now for about 4 years. We keep it in our basement. It has been the source of endless comfort for tired muscles, and for both of our backs and necks since we’ve both been in car accidents where we sustained injuries to these sensitive body parts.

For me it has been great in the winter time especially. I’m naturally quite the freeze baby and don’t have the greatest circulation to begin with. I can’t sit still for any period of time without getting cold hands and fingers.  So for me, our infrared sauna provides me with a much needed respite from the freezing cold, bone chilling winters we tend to have here in northeast Ohio.

A FIR sauna is an excellent gift for anyone who has frequent muscle and joint aches or back or neck pain a lot.  Both of these types of pain actually can ruin your day when they are pervasive, and are the source of much of the muscle pain that Americans suffer.

Since an infrared sauna penetrates the muscle and tissue more deeply than a regular “surface” heat sauna, it is great for people with circulation problems and muscle aches.  It is even recommended for those with arthritis and other joint problems as well.

For the sports enthusiast or active person, and infrared sauna appeals to the health benefits side of things too. Sweating for a length of time is thought to help promote a faster metabolism (while one is sweating). It is also thought to help remove toxins from the body since one of the major ways our body rids itself of toxins is through sweating.

Anyone who participates in vigorous sports or exercise activity can appreciate the deeply penetrating and soothing heat that a FIR sauna offers as well. It is a great way to end a workout or a long jaunt into  the world of sports.  It actually helps to de-stress and soothe the nerves, as well as to loosen up the tight muscles and headache tension that tends to come from stress and anxiety at work or in life.

You can actually get an infrared sauna for a very reasonable price these days. They can be shipped to your home and are relatively easy to assemble and get working. They’re also very attractive, so it’s not a major eyesore like some other recreational amenities. Oh, it’s also great for your complexion!

Doesn’t it feel great to get a massage after a hard workout may have left some of your muscles a bit bunched up and aching?  It feels good to get some of the knots out that you may have put in your neck, back, shoulders and legs when you’ve hit the gym particularly hard, and that often goes with seeking out a massage either from a loved one, a professional, or a machine.

I actually have one of those rolling massage machines that you put in a chair and can sit in it and have your back massaged. I like it, but sometimes it’s a little too harsh and makes me cringe with how much hard, mechanical pressure it puts on my sore spots. I’ve actually thought about getting a massager that is more targeted to my neck area.

That is, until I read a horror story about a woman being strangled to death while she was in one of these neck massagers.  Talk about a sign to stay away from something. If there is even a remote chance of that, I’m not gonna go for it, especially knowing how tired and unaware you get when you’re receiving a massage, you may not even know what’s going on.

A warning has been issued by the FDA about one particular device, the one that was responsible for the woman’s strangulation in the story I read a little while back, called Shoulderflex. What happened to the woman who was strangled to death was her necklace got stuck in one of the rotating devices of the machine, and she apparently couldn’t get out from the grip and suffocated.

Other reports of near strangulation prompted the agency to tell people to dispose of the machine. They even went a step further, urging people to dispose of it in pieces so that someone could not salvage it and reassemble it for use because it is dangerous.

There have also been reports of people hair and clothing getting stuck in the rotating devices and causing problems. I saw a picture of the device as well, and it’s too bad it has so many issues, because it could really work out the knots that many of us get in our upper back and neck and shoulders from working out.  Oh well!

Aging really sucks in general. At least when it comes to how aging affects your body, your facial appearance, and the many other fun health things that go with aging. But aging doesn’t have to be all together terrible when it comes to how you physically feel and look.

There are a ton of things you can do to maintain the way you look. Mainly, you can do this by exercising and eating well. But sometimes even doing that doesn’t prevent certain things from happening. Things like “turkey neck” and our necks getting saggier and looser are some of the ones that happen to even the best of us.

I started to notice that I was getting a bit of a “double chin” about a year ago. I had this extra little paunch of fat right below my chin. Not quite on my neck actually, but enough to eventually become a full fledged waddle. So I was determined to find natural ways to exercise the surrounding muscles and get that developing waddle to come back up and be firm and nice and defined, like my chin and neck were when I was young.

So I found a little device that was actually a neck exerciser. I bought it at Bed Bath and Beyond for just about twenty bucks.  It is just a simple cheap little plastic device that you rest on your chest, and put your chin in. You then do almost like a “sit up” with your chin, off of your chest. You can feel your neck muscles tensing as you do it.

You are only supposed to do this facial excercise for a few minutes a day at most. I find one minute to be sufficient, and in fact I actually get a little sore if I go more than that. The exercises are more intense than they appear, and you are exercising muscles that rarely get worked, so you may feel a little soreness in places that you’re not used to feeling that way.

These types of exercises for waddles, turkey necks, double chins and neck fat can be very effective, but they take time to work, and you must be diligent and consistent with doing them.  The underlying muscles need to literally pull the fat and skin back to where they belong. Of course weight loss can help in extreme situations, but many times it’s just age that makes us sag in these areas.  Damn Father Time!