If you feel tight or have muscle pain and think you should stretch, then you must read this first.
“My neck feels so tight, I need to stretch it. Can you show me some stretches?” I’m asked this question all the time and although I can handout a simple stretch, I shouldn’t because it could make their neck feel tighter and cause more pain.
There’s a difference between feeling muscle tightness and actually having tight, short muscles.
Here’s a quick test for you. Answer the questions and perform the task below.
#1. Which side of your neck feels tighter?
#2. Stand in front of a mirror with eyes closed and body relaxed for 10 seconds. Then open your eyes and note which shoulder is higher and which is lower.
#3. Is it tighter on the higher or lower shoulder side?
Is your tightness on the lower shoulder side? No, this is not a magic trick, it’s very common. Muscles that are lengthened often feel tighter then muscles that are shortened. The simple reason for this is that a lengthened muscle is under greater stress due to its increase in length.
In this case, stretching a muscle that is already lengthened could cause more harm than good as the stretch could lengthen the already long muscle, increasing its length, further lowering the shoulder and adding more stress to the lengthened muscle which will result in a greater feeling of tightness and may lead to pain.
The Conventional Approach
When a muscle length imbalance is present, the conventional approach is to stretch the shorter side while strengthening the longer side in hopes that it will shorten up. Sometimes this approach is enough to alleviate symptoms but often symptoms return. Symptoms return due to causes not being addressed. Shortened muscles are not caused by a lack of stretching. If that were the case, we’d all have tight six pack abs, but we don’t, and we don’t stretch them so there must be another reason why we have tight muscles.
Underlying Causes of Muscle Tightness
If a lack of stretching is not creating muscle tightness, then what is? Here are a few reasons that can affect muscle length.
If you’re a runner you’ve probably been told to eat a banana to minimize your risk of cramping. Because bananas contain potassium, of which is needed by muscles to function properly, cramping can be minimized. Although, it’s not exactly that easy, the point is that nutrition plays a large role in muscle tone. A lack of nutrients can cause muscle cramping and muscle shortening.
If you’ve ever separated or dislocated a joint, movement is painful initially but once pain subsides it’s evident that joint range of motion has reduced substantially. A joint that is damaged or misaligned will try to protect itself by seizing the muscles around it by shortening some muscles and lengthening others.
The nervous system plays the largest role in muscle tightness as it is the control center for the muscle. The muscle is pretty much just a dumb piece of meat, it doesn’t think very much on its own, so it relies on being told what to do by the nervous system. However, if nerves are compressed or stretched muscles receive less input and muscle length is affected. Taking it a step further, muscles are also affected by dysfunctions of the eyes, jaw, feet and scars on the skin. The nervous system relays these dysfunctions to the muscles, creating postural adaptations that affect the length of every muscle in our body.
An extremely common but less known cause of muscle tightness is stress. I’ve trained enough over worked and sleepless clients with high level corporate positions to know that tightness is directly correlated to stress. It could be their lack sleep or quality of sleep that creates a cascade of hormonal changes or simply the perception of daily stressors that influences their muscle tightness. In either case, relieving stress is paramount for this individual.
Now you can see why it’s not so easy for me to prescribe a stretch for the “feeling of tightness.” Instead, I choose to take an approach that delivers results faster and stick.
The Integrative Approach
For most, it’s never the case of one cause being the sole factor, it’s the accumulation of many factors that influence your muscle tightness. Your approach to muscle tightness should include treatment of all potential causes of muscle tightness; one that includes nutrient replenishing, joint mobilization, neurological reprogramming, and stress relief.
If you want to loosen up, release your tight muscles and move freely again
without mistakenly stretching the wrong muscles, then you need
HIPE’s Advanced Musculoskeletal Therapy.
Visibly noticeable improvement in muscle tightness during your first visit guaranteed.
Call us at 519.902.5137 today!