It wasn?t so long ago that visualisation techniques, stretching and yoga were introduced into sport and running and made an impact . . . perhaps now it?s time to consider a new style of treatment.
If you have tried everything to relieve your cramps and nothing has worked, then you're about to be enlightened.
Japanese Acupuncturist and lecturer Paul Movsessian explains the concept of treating cramp from an 'Eastern' perspective.
?From an oriental point of view, as with Chinese and Japanese medicine there?s this concept of ?Chi? - which is commonly translated as energy ? but energy is not really the right word for it.?
?One of the doctors from Japan, Dr Manaka, found that the language of quantum physics and general systems theory is actually more appropriate for what oriental medicine is trying to describe. So instead of energy we should think of it as ?information?.?
?So ?chi? is really information.?
?There are many types of ?chi? in the body. There?s the chi that deals with the breath, the chi which deals with your digestion, the chi which deals with your immune system on the surface of the skin and so forth.?
?If that information doesn?t get moved along correctly, then it will produce some area of blood that doesn?t move along. So basically blood follows chi.?
?Chi has to move, so all disease, in eastern medicine, is viewed as a chi stagnation, or something going wrong with the chi or the information of the body.?
?When that happens, blood doesn?t flow through the muscles and tendons. The main system in the body which governs this is the liver channel and the gall bladder channel.?
?There?s a difference between saying liver meaning liver organ rather than the liver channel ? and gall bladder organ versus the gall bladder channel. Now the liver and gall bladder channels are the pathways where this information moves along, and eventually they lead to the organ itself.?
?And all the organs have what we call concordances ? they all relate to something. They have an orifice (an entry point for energy), they have a sense, they have a sound, a season, a temperature that they prefer. So you see a set of symptoms in different parts of the body when you get problems.?
?You can tell which channel is most damaged by a bunch of symptoms that may arise. These symptoms form a pattern that, from our point of view in the western world, we wouldn?t say is linked to the liver or the kidneys or another organ, but that?s how we look at it in oriental medicine.?
?When we talk about cramps, we start with the fact that the liver deals with nourishing the muscles and tendons. That?s the key feature for the liver. And the muscle and tendon pathways tend to run from the foot all the way up the inside of the leg, through the genitalia and up through the breast and to the eyes.?
?So a lot of eye problems relate to the liver and to problems with muscles and tendons.?
?You can check how good your liver is with the blood . . . if you try to make a fist when you first open your eyes in the morning. Now if you can make quite a strong fist as soon as you wake up, that means the liver?s health is quite good. It?s able to take the blood in and take the blood out quite smoothly. If it?s a weak fist, then you probably have a predisposal moving towards that problem.?
?The same thing with people that can?t open jars first thing in the morning until the circulation starts moving through their system and then they start to feel a bit better. That?s a typical liver problem.?
Paul goes on to describe how the different forms of treatment work - acupuncture, ear acupuncture, moxa, ion pumping cords, Sotai treatment and treating the constitution through subtle changes in lifestyle.
Acupressure is another form of treatment that you can apply to yourself - here is the first of 4 acupressure points that will work to provide relief:
. . .the next thing you could do would be the pressure points on the body that you could massage. These would affect the calf muscles and the whole leg and there are 2 main areas or pressure points.
These points treat the constitution ? the root cause of the problem.
The first pressure point is known as ?liver3?. You come to the bones of the big toe and the second toe - these are the metatarsals ? and you follow these along to where these metatarsals come to a junction on the top of the foot. This is about half-way along your foot.
When you find that area and press it, you?ll find a sore spot. Massage that spot and the area using the thumb (as it has the greatest force of the fingers) and that area will improve circulation through the liver channel. It?s the strongest point on the liver channel.
In his book on how to prevent and cure muscle cramps, Newland explains there are three more pressure points that provide definitive and immediate pain relief.
Paul Newland is a health and nutrition consultant, trainer, martial arts instructor, commercial helicopter pilot and author. His Ultimate Cramp Busting Guide is one of the internet's leading health information books and is the definitive guide to preventing, treating and curing cramps associated with exercise. In the Ultimate Cramp Busting Guide Newland speaks with 6 health, sports, nutrition, medical and complimentary health care professionals and explains why you get cramps, the best ways to treat them and how to prevent them from happening again.