If you lead an active lifestyle, you’re probably familiar with muscle soreness or tightness. You’ve probably even tried to treat your muscle pain with everything from oral pain relief to acupuncture. Muscle soreness can slow your progress towards your fitness goals, and cause serious problems in your daily life.
One therapy that you may not be aware of is dry needling therapy. Dry needling is an effective way to relieve discomfort for tight, sore, or painful muscles. In this post we’ll explore dry needling; explain how it works and the benefits you may experience; show how to incorporate dry needling into your fitness routine; and look at a real-world example of dry needling with Ace Sports Clinic.
What is Dry Needling?
Dry needling is an evidence-based therapeutic technique designed to treat muscle pain and stiffness. It involves inserting thin, sterile needles into trigger points or muscle knots[1]. Dry needling aims to alleviate tightness, enhance circulation, and promote the body’s natural healing processes. While dry needling therapy shares many similarities to acupuncture, it focuses specifically on muscle function and pain relief and is rooted in Western medicine.
How Does Dry Needling Work?
With dry needling, a needle is inserted into a trigger point to stimulate the muscle to contract and then relax. This process is known as a ‘local twitch response’. The local twitch response helps increase blood flow to the area and releases muscle tension.
“Dry needling is great at getting into the deep knots of the muscle and releasing the trigger points. It works quite quickly, and we often combine it with massage to release the muscle.”
- Luke Fuller – CEO, Osteopathic Manual Practitioner & Physiotherapist, Ace Sports Clinic
Who can Benefit from Dry Needling?
While dry needling can improve muscle stiffness or pain in a wide variety of people, the technique is beneficial for athletes[2], as well as people who suffer from conditions such as:
- Myofascial pain syndrome
- Chronic muscle tightness
- Sciatica
- Sports injuries
- Tendonitis
Dry needling can also be beneficial for people who are looking to reduce their recovery time from workouts, manage muscle-related pain, or improve muscle flexibility.
“Sometimes people have been getting massages for weeks, months even, and they don’t get rid of that deep tightness. Dry needling is great to reduce those muscle trigger points.”
- Luke Fuller – CEO, Osteopathic Manual Practitioner & Physiotherapist, Ace Sports Clinic
The Benefits of Dry Needling
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Immediate Pain Relief
Dry needling benefits can include immediate pain relief, making it a powerful and compelling treatment for those who are suffering from muscle pain or discomfort. The local twitch response caused by inserting a needle into a trigger point helps to release build-up muscle tension[4]. Many patients report a noticeable reduction in muscle pain after just one dry needling session.
“Muscle twitching is a good reaction, that's going to release those deep fibers of the muscle. The muscle can be a little bit sensitive after treatment, so I just put MEDISTIK on the area just to take the edge off.”
- Luke Fuller – CEO, Osteopathic Manual Practitioner & Physiotherapist, Ace Sports Clinic
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Enhanced Circulation and Healing
Dry needling supports the body's natural healing process by stimulating blood flow to the treated areas. Dry needling creates vasodilation in the smaller blood vessels, which results in enhanced blood flow and increased oxygen supply to the muscles.
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Improved Flexibility and Range of Motion
Dry needling targets muscle fibers directly which helps to “break up” tightness in your muscles. This can enhance your flexibility and range of motion, which is crucial for preventing injury during physical activities.
Dry Needling vs Acupuncture
Dry needling shares a lot of similarities with the more widely known treatment acupuncture, in that they both involve the use of needles to relieve pain and tension, but they differ in their underlying principles and treatment goals.
Dry needling is a technique rooted in Western medicine and is focused on relieving muscle pain by targeting trigger points. Acupuncture comes from Traditional Chinese Medicine and aims to balance the body’s energy, known as Qi, by targeting specific meridians[3].
While the techniques, needle placement, and goals differ significantly, both can provide therapeutic benefits for pain management.
EXPLORE TOPICAL PAIN RELIEF SOLUTIONS
How Does Dry Needling Help Muscle Pain?
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Less Recovery Time for Muscle Pain
Muscle recovery can be slow and painful, especially for those who engage in intense physical activity. Dry needling helps to speed up the recovery process and increases blood flow to the treated areas. This increased blood flow helps the muscle tissue repair more quickly and reduces the time you’re out of action.
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Targeted Treatment for Muscle Pain and Soreness
By targeting specific trigger points, dry needling helps to break up muscle knots and increase circulation, exactly where you need it. The needles used in dry needling treatments stimulate a healing response from the body, which helps your muscles recover faster. Unlike other treatments, like oral pain relief, dry needling can isolate the impacted areas effectively, and target the pain or stiffness directly.
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Supports Muscle Recovery for Athletes
Tightness, strains, soreness, and stiffness in muscles are common experiences after physical activity. Athletes and those who work out regularly should ensure they are following proper muscle recovery plans to avoid injury or further discomfort. One of the benefits of dry needling is that it can be an effective part of that recovery plan to relieve muscles by targeting specific areas that are overworked or strained.
How to Use Dry Needling
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Incorporating Dry Needling into Your Fitness Routine
Dry needling can be a valuable addition to any fitness routine as part of an overall recovery plan[5]. Dry needling is especially helpful after intense training sessions, when dealing with chronic muscle pain, or when leveling up the volume or intensity of your training.
You can use dry needling alongside traditional recovery techniques such as massage, foam rolling, and stretching to help keep your muscles healthy.
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Using Dry Needling to Relieve Muscle Soreness After a Workout
Muscle soreness after a workout or strenuous activity can seriously impact your daily life, but dry needling could be the answer. Dry needling can help reduce muscle soreness and aid a quicker recovery, as well as help you stay on track to hit your fitness goals, improve your flexibility, or make daily life more bearable.
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Dry Needling to Speed Up Muscle Strain Recovery
Dry needling can be used to accelerate the healing process for muscle strain by targeting a specific area of pain, and reducing inflammation while improving circulation[6]. Dry needling can be particularly effective for those who are suffering from muscle strain due to exercise.
Ace Sports Clinic’s Approach to Dry Needling
Ace Sports Clinic is a leader in natural healing and holistic pain management for elite athletes and active individuals. Dedicated to natural health, Ace Sports Clinic uses dry needling, amongst other techniques, to help their clients stay active and pain-free.
By combining deep treatments like dry needling, and classic techniques like massage therapy, alongside topical solutions like MEDISTIK, Ace Sports Clinic helps their clients to maintain strength, flexibility, mobility, and maintain healthy and happy muscles.
See how Ace Sports Clinic uses dry needling to relieve muscle tension:
