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The 5 Things A Massage Therapist Will Probably Tell You To Do In Order To Stop Hurting

Caveat: I’ve only been a massage therapist for about 7 months. But I’ve noticed that lots of people come in with the same issues, and I wind up giving the same stretches and exercises as “homework.” So I thought, why not tell everyone? Here they are:

1. “Shoulderblade kisses” aka scapula retraction exercise.

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You know that spot between your shoulderblades that gets tense all the time? Well, it’s not actually tense: it’s stretched. Those are your rhomboids and the pain they experience is the price we pay for using a computer, studying, driving a car, texting, and any other activity that involves our arms being out in front of us. That position brings our shoulders and our shoulderblades forward into protraction. That stretches out the rhomboids and causes them to tense up in an effort to counteract our slump.

What do? Take your arms out to the sides, Jesus-style. Now bend your elbows and try to bring them behind your back. Your forearms should still be out to the sides. You’ll kind of look like you’re trying to pick a fight with someone. Do 25 of these and you should be able to feel those rhomboids getting stronger, pulling your shoulders back where they should be.

2. “Write the alphabet with your nose” aka neck exercises.

Stiff neck? Tension headaches? You might be tempted to stretch. Don’t. Necks are super-prone to adhesions and trigger points, both of which can actually get worse if you stretch without warming up the muscles first. Next time you wake up with neck pain, try exercising it instead of stretching.

What do? My favorite is the alphabet exercise, in which you pretend the tip of your nose is a pencil and write the alphabet with it. Start off small with A and get bigger until the Z is huge. That takes your neck through a lot of different motions.

3. “Play superman” aka back extension exercises.

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Hand-in-hand with the shoulder slump is the back curve. This usually presents as pain in the mid-back on either or both sides of the spine, in what’s called the erector spinae group (or ESGs in massage lingo). True to their Latin, the ESGs hold us upright—but when we’re slumping forward all the time they, like the rhomboids, get stretched out and weakened. Then when we go to lift something too heavy and bend over instead of using our legs, we get that eeeeeeak feeling in our back that is the ESGs informing us that this shit is not on.

What do? Lie on your front with your arms out to the sides. The picture above is kind of advanced: feel free to not have your arms out so far above your head, I only have my arms at a ninety-degree angle with my shoulders, frankly. Start off with maybe 20 reps of that motion and work your way up to 50 and arms straight out. Don’t overwork the muscles, but get them going.

4. “Cobra pose” aka psoas stretch.

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You ever get that pain in your low back from sitting in a chair for a long time? That’s your psoas being a bitch. This stretch is a natural transition from the superman exercises. Really, it stretches a whole lot of things that need it, but especially the psoas muscles. The psoas attaches to the fronts of the vertebrae in the small of your back and run down through the pelvis to end up on the insides of your legs. It’s a waist flexor, which means that all that time you spend sitting down is teaching it to be short. Then when you go to stand up, it wants to STAY short instead of stretching, and the result is a sharp, powerful tug on your lumbar vertebrae and a helluva lot of low back pain.

What do? Lie on your front and rise up onto your elbows. You should feel a stretch in your abdomen. If you don’t, go up further onto your hands. If you still don’t, do this shit. Then get the fuck away from me. Jesus, what’s wrong with you? Do you not have a spine?

5. “Foam rolling your IT band” aka WHY GOD WHY DOES IT HURT??

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I don’t know who made that picture but it is 100% accurate. See, there’s this swath of connective tissue (think tendons and ligaments) that runs down the sides of your thighs from your hips to your knees, called the Iliotibial Band, or IT band or ITB for short. The ITB, being sticky-wicky connective tissue, loves to get tangled up in everything around it, which is primarily the hamstrings and the quads. The adhesions that form along the whole length of the ITB prevent both these muscles groups from relaxing, and leads to all sorts of painful things, from torn hamstrings to kneecaps getting out of alignment and wearing down cartilage (thus necessitating knee replacements) to hip issues (gluteus maximus aka “the butt” feeds into the ITB). Basically it wants to fuck up your entire lower body.

What do? Well, if you’ve got a high pain threshold like the lady with the rictus grin in the picture, you can buy a foam roller and plop down on it like she is, then roll back and forth to your heart’s screaming, agonized content. If, however, your IT band is as sensitive as most people’s, I recommend getting a hard plastic water bottle (one that won’t crack and has a tight lid!!), filling it up with warm water, and using that instead. You can either assume the same position as above, or simply sit in a chair and rub it up and down your legs from hip to knee. Do it for about five minutes each day and that will relax the IT band as well as loosen the adhesions to the hamstrings and quadricep muscles. Stretch both those muscles afterwards for maximum benefit!

Again: caveat. I am by no means an expert at this. These are just the things that I’ve found to be most helpful for my clients. I take no responsibility if you injure yourselves actually doing these things, and especially no responsibility if you actually decide to foam roll your IT band. Seriously, that shit hurts.

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me

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@tomfordvelvetorchid look

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college professor substitutes for preschoolers and their participation makes him feel something again

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This isn’t space related. But this needs exposure immediately. 

This person is talking about the crisis of obtaining fresh water in their town of Flint, Michigan.

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Omg

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wen u come home and u gotta act sober

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this girl has been on quite the journey…

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For the second year in a row, the Oscars overlook actors and directors of color

Many of whom deserved nominations, without question.

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Leaked Documents Reveal Dothan Police Department Planted Drugs on Young Black Men For Years

HUNDREDS OF CASES PROSECUTED WITH PLANTED EVIDENCE, MANY WRONGLY CONVICTED STILL IN PRISON

The Alabama Justice Project has obtained documents that reveal a Dothan Police Department’s Internal Affairs investigation was covered up by the district attorney. 

A group of up to a dozen police officers on a specialized narcotics team were found to have planted drugs and weapons on young black men for years. 

They were supervised at the time by Lt. Steve Parrish, current Dothan Police Chief, and Sgt. Andy Hughes, current Director of Homeland Security for the State of Alabama. All of the officers reportedly were members of a Neoconfederate organization that theSouthern Poverty Law Center labels “racial extremists.” The group has advocated for blacks to return to Africa, published that the civil rights movement is really a Jewish conspiracy, and that blacks have lower IQ’s . Both Parrish and Hughes held leadership positions in the group and are pictured above holding a confederate battle flag at one of the club’s secret meetings.

The documents shared reveal that the internal affairs investigation was covered up to protect the aforementioned officers’ law enforcement careers and keep them from being criminally prosecuted.

Several long term Dothan law enforcement officers, all part of an original group that initiated the investigation, believe the public has a right to know that the Dothan Police Department, and District Attorney Doug Valeska, targeted young black men by planting drugs and weapons on them over a decade. 

Most of the young men were prosecuted, many sentenced to prison, and some are still in prison.  

Many of the officers involved were subsequently promoted and are in leadership positions in law enforcement. They hope the mood of the country is one that demands action and that the US Department of Justice will intervene.

The group of officers requested they be granted anonymity, and shared hundreds of files from the Internal Affairs Division. They reveal a pattern of criminal behavior from within the highest levels of the Dothan Police Department and the district attorney’s office in the 20th Judicial District of Alabama. Multiple current and former officers have agreed to testify if United States Attorney General Loretta Lynch appoints a special prosecutor from outside the state of Alabama, or before a Congressional hearing. The officers believe that there are currently nearly a thousand wrongful convictions resulting in felonies from the 20th Judicial District that are tied to planted drugs and weapons and question whether a system that allows this can be allowed to continue to operate.

Members of the Henry County Report have spent weeks analyzing the documents. The originals, secured at an N.G.O. in Canada, are being shared directly with attorneys in the U.S. Dept. of Justice Civil Rights Division, and are being made available to the lawyers of those falsely convicted that seek to clear their names.

There are two federal lawsuits currently pending by former police officers Keith Gray and Raemonica Carney against the Dothan Police Department. They will be given access as well as they substantiate their claims of racial discrimination and city’s violation of a federal court decree.

The documents serve as irrefutable evidence of criminal activity at the highest levels of the Dothan Police Department.

Beginning in early 1996, the Dothan Police Department received complaints from black victims that drugs and weapons were being planted. Specifically young black men who had clean records were targeted. Police Chief, John White, allegedly instructed senior officers to ignore the complaints and they willingly complied.

In early 1998, a group of concerned white officers from within the Police Department complained in writing about what they witnessed. This is reflected in the document below where it refers to a series of allegations that took place over 11 months before the department acted. The initial written complaint from the department’s own officers is dated June, 1998. The internal memo documents the last allegation as occurring in April of 1999. Almost a year of internal complaints by the department’s own police officers passed before Chief White turned it over to the Internal Affairs Division.

On August 27, 1999 more than a dozen officers had allegations against them for planting drugs and weapons on black men they had falsely arrested. They were each notified of a formal investigation and required to prepare statements in writing to the Internal Affairs Division. They were then tested by polygraph examination, most reportedly failed. The notification of charges reference a combination of marijuana, cocaine, and guns being planted on citizens during arrests that were witnessed by multiple fellow police officers.

All of these cases involving planted drugs and weapons were subsequently prosecuted by District Attorney, Doug Valeska, despite the written allegations by police officers that the evidence was planted. Never was any such information shared in the discovery process with the defendant’s attorneys.  We have been advised that each of these are considered felonies committed by the district attorney.  read more here

By coming forward almost a decade later after these letters, this group of officers who witnessed drugs and weapons being planted and had the moral courage to bravely do the right thing are hoping the United States Department of Justice will intervene. The want a specially appointed federal prosecutor, from outside the state of Alabama to hold District Attorney, Doug Valeska, former Chief, John White, current Chief, Steve Parrish, Homeland Security Director, Andy Hughes, and Capt Carleton Ott responsible. But most importantly, attempt to make those hundreds of young black men’s lives whole again who have been victims of the Dothan Police Department. They believe the time for justice has come.

SOURCE

Tough fucking shit!

If the police and DA didn’t want to end up setting thousands and thousands of actual guilty people free, then they shouldn’t have BROKEN THE FUCKING LAW.

Arguing that you’d end up releasing too many guilty people is like arguing that putting Bernie Madoff in prison for fraud is going to put a lot of his employees out of work!

#Cops #Police #CorruptedCops #Justice 

#StayWoke

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Watch: Still unsure if white privilege exists? This should clear it up.

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via The Stigma Project