The word “trigger point” comes from trigger and means to activate. Here we mean the activation of channeled pain. Trigger points can be felt on the surface of the skin as small knots in the muscles that are sensitive to pressure.

Trigger points characteristically transfer pain to parts of the body that are not close to the actual trigger point. They are found particularly frequently in the shoulder area. Pressing a trigger point here can cause a pain to radiate to the back of the head or all the way to the forehead. The so-called tension headache is generally a pain that is caused by trigger points. It has not yet been explained why, upon pressing a trigger point, pain is channeled to a part of the body that corresponds neither to the pattern of the muscles nor to the paths of the nerves.

Interestingly enough, 80% of the trigger points are identical with acupuncture points in Chinese medicine.
When pressure is applied to the trigger points they “weaken themselves.”