East Bay Chiropractic Wellness P.C.

Dr. Martin Marmorale

Yard Work Injuries and the Graston Technique®: Protecting Your Back This Fall

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The first real cleanup weekend of fall has a way of sneaking up on you. The maples and oaks finally let go, the lawn disappears under a layer of red and gold, and suddenly there are gutters to clear, garden beds to cut back, and a dozen bags to fill before the town’s pickup day. You get it all done in one long Saturday, feel pretty good about it, and then wake up Sunday morning barely able to bend over to put on your socks.

That pattern shows up at our Bellmore office every October and November, and it is rarely bad luck. Fall yard work asks your back to do hours of bending, pulling, twisting, and lifting that it probably has not done since last spring. Understanding why it goes wrong, and what to do when it does, can make the difference between a sore weekend and a strain that lingers into the holidays. If you are already dealing with an ache, our back and neck pain care page explains how we approach these complaints at the practice.

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Back-to-School Neck Pain: How Phone Use, Laptops, and Poor Posture Create Chronic Tension

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The first week of school brings a familiar shift. Backpacks come back out, homework returns to the evening routine, and screens fill in the rest – texting between classes, a laptop propped open for hours of assignments, a phone scrolled through on the bus ride home. By October, plenty of parents at our Bellmore office are describing the same thing in their teenagers: a stiff, achy neck that seems to show up out of nowhere and never quite goes away.

It has not come from nowhere. It has come from months of the head tilted forward over a screen, and it is one of the most common patterns we see once the school year gets underway.

Chiropractors sometimes call this tech neck or text neck, and understanding what is actually happening in the neck and upper back is the first step toward doing something about it before it becomes a pattern that follows your teens into adulthood. If your family is already dealing with a related issue, our back and neck pain care page covers how we approach the full range of spinal complaints we see at the practice.

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Can the Graston Technique® Help Plantar Fasciitis? Understanding Heel Pain During Summer Activity

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You swing your legs out of bed, put your first foot down, and a sharp pain drives up through your heel. By the time the coffee is made it has softened to a dull ache, and by mid-morning you have nearly forgotten it. Then you spend an afternoon on the boardwalk or standing barefoot on the sand, and that night it comes back with interest. If that pattern sounds familiar, you are describing one of the most recognizable presentations of plantar fasciitis we see at our Bellmore office, and summer on Long Island is the season when it tends to announce itself.

Heel pain of this kind is stubborn for a straightforward reason: the tissue involved never really gets to rest, because every step you take loads it again. That is also why so many people cycle through new sneakers, drugstore inserts, and calf stretches for months without much to show for it. The Graston Technique®, an instrument-assisted soft tissue approach Dr. Marmorale has been certified in since 2008, works on a different part of the problem, namely the fascial restriction and scar tissue that accumulates in chronically overloaded tissue. If you have read our earlier post on whether the Graston Technique works on tarsal tunnel syndrome, you already have a feel for how instrument work applies to the foot. Heel pain follows a similar logic.

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Pickleball Injuries and the Graston Technique®

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Your elbow has been aching for two weeks, and it is not settling down between games. Or maybe it is your heel, sharp and stubborn every time you step out of bed in the morning. If pickleball has become part of your weekly routine here on Long Island, you are far from alone in dealing with an ache that showed up around the same time you picked up a paddle.

Pickleball’s reputation as a gentle, low-impact sport can be misleading. The quick lateral cuts, sudden stops, and repetitive paddle strokes place real demand on tendons and connective tissue that many players have not used this way in years. We see this pattern often in the elbow injuries that show up across racket and paddle sports, and pickleball has become one of the more common causes of it at our Bellmore office. The encouraging part is that these soft tissue injuries tend to respond well to targeted, hands-on treatment, including the Graston Technique®, an approach Dr. Marmorale has used with active adults on Long Island for years.

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Treating Muscle Knots with the Graston Technique®

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You can usually find them with your fingertips — those small, tender, rope-like spots buried in the muscles of your upper traps, your lower back, or the side of your hip. You press, and they push back. You stretch, and they refuse to soften. Sometimes they radiate a dull ache far from where you are pressing, leaving you wondering why your shoulder hurts when the source of the trouble seems to be somewhere else entirely. These stubborn pockets of restricted tissue are commonly called muscle knots, and they are one of the most frequent — and most frustrating — reasons patients walk into our office.

Muscle knots feel deceptively simple to fix. Roll them out, press them harder, stretch them more — surely something will give. But anyone who has lived with a recurring knot in the shoulder or low back knows the truth: most of these tight spots simply do not respond to general stretching or self-massage in the long term. The reason has less to do with the muscle itself and more to do with the layers of connective tissue surrounding it. If you have already read about how stubborn restrictions interact with muscle tightness when returning to exercise, this article picks up where that one left off and focuses specifically on what to do when a knot will not let go.

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Muscle Tightness When Returning to Exercise

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You decided to get moving again. Maybe it was a New Year’s resolution, a doctor’s recommendation, or simply the realization that your body felt different after months (or years) away from regular activity. So, you laced up your sneakers, picked up the weights, and pushed through that first workout. Now, two days later, every step feels heavier than the last, your hamstrings refuse to fully lengthen, and even reaching into the cabinet for a coffee mug seems to involve muscles you forgot you had.

Muscle tightness when returning to exercise is one of the most common — and most discouraging — experiences for adults reentering a fitness routine. It is also one of the most misunderstood. The discomfort you feel is not necessarily a punishment for taking time off, but rather your body’s way of recalibrating. Understanding what is happening, how long it should last, and when to seek targeted care can make the difference between sticking with your routine and quitting before you start to see results.

At East Bay Chiropractic Wellness P.C. in Bellmore, NY, we work with patients every week who are navigating exactly this challenge. This guide will walk you through the physiology of post-workout soreness, evidence-based strategies to ease it, and the role chiropractic care — particularly the Graston Technique® — plays in helping you move with less stiffness and more confidence.

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