IN 1980, BONNIE PRUDDEN introduced the general public to the words “trigger point” and “myotherapy” in her New York Times national best seller, Pain Erasure the Bonnie Prudden Way.
Bonnie Prudden Myotherapy® is a method of relaxing muscle spasm, improving circulation and alleviating pain. To diffuse “trigger points,” pressure is applied to the muscle for several seconds by means of fingers, knuckles or elbows. Passive exercise to the muscle group follows. The patient is then given “homework/corrective” exercises to do. The success of this method depends on the use of specific exercise for the freed muscles.
Myo means muscle in Greek and therapy, fix it if you can. Dr. Tivy, who wrote the Foreword and Afterword, had coined the word to describe Bonnie’s technique back in 1976. When the Pain Erasure book came out in 1980 and became a best seller body workers began to use the term myotherapy in their own practices. Our office began to get calls. People were confused. Bonnie registered Bonnie Prudden Myotherapy® as her trademark to distinguish it from the newly sprouting myotherapies.
What is Different and Special About Bonnie Prudden Myotherapy®?
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- Although there are common patterns of trigger points, YOUR pattern is unique to you because the way you used YOUR muscles is unique to you.
- Since muscle groups pull on one another, BPM treats opposing and adjacent muscle groups looking for trigger points along the ENTIRE length of the muscle. Pressure to the trigger point is held for about 7 seconds and the pain should “feel good.”
- During a BPM session, the treated area is moved passively through a range of motion after each muscle group has been worked on.
- Following the treatment, additional CORRECTIVE homework exercises are given to be done throughout the day. Muscles, like children, need to be reminded often until they unlearn their bad habits (spasm) and begin to learn new ones (relax). We suggest 4 reps done 4 to 6 times a day.
- BPM has a high degree of success, about 95% with muscle related problems. If there is pathology (you need a new hip) treatment might give you a bit more time while making a decision, but will be temporary.
- You can learn it and use it as outlined in the books, DVDs, our live courses and our on line courses. www.bonnieprudden.com
- If you are working on a friend or family member NO special tools are needed, only fingers, knuckles and elbows. These you carry with you. If you are performing self-help we have designed easy to use tools. www.bonnieprudden.com
Trigger Points
For our purposes “trigger points” are irritable spots that get into the muscle when it is injured / insulted in some way such as in birth, accidents, occupations, sports, and hobbies. When the “climate” in right the old injury plus stress causes the muscles in which the trigger points reside to tighten and trigger the spasm-pain-spasm cycle.
Bonnie was no stranger to injuries or to emotional stress. As a teenager she had hurt her neck in a diving accident and a fall from a horse and had fractured her pelvis in four places during a ski accident in 1937 when she was 23 years old. The old injuries and the stress of an unhappy marriage led to back pain and finally a leather and steel back brace.
Her introduction of pressure to trigger points came in 1938 when Dr. Hans Kraus, an orthopedic Austrian trained surgeon, her climbing partner and mentor, pressed his thumb (he didn’t have his needles with him) into her very stiff painful neck. The pain subsided, the head straightened, and they set off for their planned climb in the Showangunks. She forgot about this until 1976.
By 1976, Bonnie had been working with doctors for over 40 years, first with Dr. Kraus at his NY office where she learned and administered the therapeutic exercises following the injection of trigger points with saline / procaine solution, and later taking referrals for therapeutic exercise at her Institute for Physical Fitness in White Plains, NY.
In 1960, she built and then moved to her new home and the Institute for Physical Fitness in Stockbridge, MA. Bonnie met Dr. Desmond Tivy, a British trained internist with a very open mind, and in the mid-70s began a working relationship with him. He wanted to do trigger point injections but didn’t have the time to become proficient in finding them. Bonnie would locate the points in the painful area and draw a circle with an arrow indicating the direction of the injection. Dr. Tivy would inject and then send the patient back to Bonnie for the therapeutic exercises.
One morning Bonnie was working on a woman with a stiff and painful neck and was searching for the trigger points. “Frankly, I didn’t know what I’d done when she let out a shriek, snapped her head up off her shoulder and smiled.” “…and like a bomb, an autumn scene in the Showangunks exploded in my head. Dr. Kraus had known just where to push. I think things happen because they are supposed to. I finished the job with specific exercises, gave her some homework and scratched the appointment for the injection. All this, mind you, while in state of shock.”
That same morning this happened with two more patients, one with a tennis elbow and one with a “frozen shoulder.” “I felt a Mona Lisa smile coming on.”
Bonnie and her staff went on to experiment and develop tools, develop, and practice techniques on themselves, one another and on anyone they could put their hands on. The rest is history, so to speak, and is outlined in her books Pain Erasure the Bonnie Prudden Way, Myotherapy, Bonnie Prudden’s Complete Guide to Pain-Free Living, and Bonnie Prudden’s After Fifty Fitness Guide. The technique is also included in her revised editions of How to Keep Your Child Fit from Birth to Six, Fitness From Six to Twelve, and Teenage Fitness.
Give yourself and others you love a pain-free and fit new year: www.bonnieprudden.com
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If you have questions or need help, email me at enid@bonnieprudden.com.
For more information about Bonnie Prudden®, Bonnie Prudden Myotherapy®, workshops, books, self-help tools, DVDs, educational videos, and blogs, visit www.bonnieprudden.com. Or call 520-299-8064 if you have questions or need help. Enid Whittaker, Managing Director, Bonnie Prudden Myotherapy®