Please, please, please.... Stretch your PECS!

Tight chest muscles pull your shoulders forward and will definitely cause pain in a lot of these areas.

Look up simple: Door Frame stretch.

Also, if you decide to get a professional massage, the therapist MUST work on your PECS, make sure to discuss it.

I know y'all hate YT... but, here:

I got chronic back/joint/muscle issues for 15 years. I feel advice like this is only semi-useful. Every body is different, and you gotta use a holistic approach to the whole system to really fix/maintain shit. Short harmstrings and a weak core alone can cause this. And you can work your pecs all you want, it will come back if you don't work on your core too.

I've worked massage systems for many years. A very high % of clients get a lot of relief from pectoral deep tissue work and regular stretching.

Of course it's not a "cure all", but, a significant amount of people don't even take it into consideration.

Do you happen to have any tips for when your fuckiest of fuckwaffles is lower than the ones pictured? As in, lower back. Particularly right above the tail bone for me.

Sounds like it might be the "QL"... You could try to lay flat with a Lacrosse ball in that area. Or, if you can afford a massage, discuss "QL" with the therapist.

QL = quadratus lumborum

This muscle is very deep and can be difficult to work with. A good therapist should be comfortable using their elbow to lean in deep into your side.

Oh can I chime in with a question as well?

What is that "and then there's this fucking asshole" muscle? Because from the location that is exactly the asshole that got me hospitalized twice for intercostal neuralgia - once with an ambulance ride, highest doses of morphine (didn't ease the pain and made me very sick and whiny), and an x ray because they assumed I had broken a rib bone.

When I had my third attack I recognized it was that fucking thing again and that I could do nothing but wait it out for two days. I also realized there is a connection to emotional distress and it probably has a big psychosomatic factor. I hadn't had a big attack in years but when I get distressed I still get pain in that stripe next to my spine. It gets tense just writing this out and remembering.

I've given birth and with the biggest honesty and calm asked my partner to kill me during labor. The intercostal neuralgia was about 2% less painful than childbirth and I didn't end up with a cute baby afterwards so it's really not worth the pain. It's cramping up to a point that I think the muscle will rip, then it goes away. After a couple of seconds again, cramp, can't breathe, can't talk, gone. For days. Nowadays it's usually not that bad that I cannot breathe but WHAT IS THIS FUCKER and what can I do to strengthen it and, more importantly, to actively relax it?

Sorry, I'm not a strengthening coach. And you'd need a hands on eval to try find the muscle group that might be your "bitch".