Muscle Tightness - Healing Therapies

Why do muscles get tight or feel stiff?

While writing this blog, I came across different ways of interpreting these two words – Tight and Stiff – in relation to muscles. Without putting too fine a point on these words, let us say that we use these words to describe a feeling, whether it refers to limited range of movement (ROM), mild pain and discomfort; they are just our own subjective way of expressing what we feel. Throughout this blog, I will use both words, but I will also use the proper terms that describe the physical/mechanical condition of the muscles.

Muscle tightness can happen 1) after a long period of inactivity 2) during exercise 3) following a workout session and 4) the emotional/anxiety/stress factor.

Long periods of inactivity: Sitting at a desk and leaning forward does a) shorten the hip muscles (hip flexors) as the hip is in a forward-bent position and the muscles are therefore in a flexed, tightened position. This prolonged state of shortened position of the hip flexors causes the posterior hip muscles – the glutes – into a lengthened (stretched) position.

Similarly, leaning forward at the desk or any other position that assumes this posture, shortens the chest muscles – Pectoralis – into a tight position. The counter effect of this will result into the lengthening of the upper back muscles like the Rhomboids and possibly the upper Trapezius muscle.

After a long period of inactivity and poor posture, the shortened chest muscles and the hip flexors will feel tight and the lengthened muscles on the upper back and the glutes (lower back) will become weak thus resulting into muscle imbalance.

Any state to which muscles are subjected beyond their anatomically correct position, will result into fatigue and, eventually, pain and stiffness. This will render the muscles unable to fully perform their functions.

During exercise: 1) muscle cramps. This unpleasant and painful condition does not necessarily happen only during exercise but also during a resting period. The reasons for muscle cramps vary from low sodium, potassium or muscle fatigue. During exercise, however, when we contract the muscle while weight lifting, for example, the muscle fibres shorten and increase tension. Once we are done with that particular set of exercise, the muscle fibres are supposed to relax and lengthen back to their original state. During a muscle cramp, this does not happen. The muscle fibres remain shortened-contracted and unable to return to their original shape. Some of my clients experience this during a massage session and one would think the immediate course of action would be to stretch the muscle in order to remedy the situation. Wrong! Let the muscle relax at its own pace, which should take a minute or two, before you start doing some mild stretching to the affected area.

Post exercise tightness: If you are a regular gym-goer you will have noticed this the following day after a workout when your muscles feel sore (stiff). This is more prevalent when you are doing eccentric contraction i.e. when the weight on the contracted muscle is being gradually lowered whilst the muscle is being lengthened. For example, in the case of bicep curls, when you lift the dumbbell upwards (concentric contraction) causing the bicep to shorten, the eccentric contraction is when you lower the same weight downwards trying to lengthen the same muscle. The soreness felt afterwards is the result of some minor muscle ruptures which should disappear after 24 hours or so. When you are given a new set of exercises or increase your weights suddenly, muscle ruptures may not be so minor and the stiffness-soreness lingers on for a longer period. To increase blood flow to these areas and feed the muscles with the necessary nutrients, massage may help to recover faster and, therefore, alleviate pain.

The Emotional/anxiety and stress factor:

Whether we realise it or not (and most of the time we don’t) when we are going through periods of anxiety, mental-emotional stress, we ‘tense up’. We find ourselves assuming a rigid posture, and the mind starts expressing the emotional status into physical (somatic) behaviour. We don’t realise when we are in this type of psycho-somatic state where, for example, we feel our back muscles (traps) tighten, our neck muscles as specified in this diagram thus leading to the most commonly known ‘tension headaches’ or even migraines.

This is the switch from the state of mind to the physical state.

Remedy? Mental tension and/or anxiety may not go away instantly, but being aware of our situation and finding ways to relax those muscles by mild stretches, being outdoors and going for walks or even having a soothing neck/back massage will help alleviate the tightness of those muscles.