Why do Muscles Really Feel Tense or Tight

Do you have a stiff neck, tight hamstrings or an achy lower back that just keeps coming back, no matter how much you stretch, have a massage or go to physio?

Maybe you've got other muscles that always feel 'tight' no matter what you try to release them.

Here are 5x reasons why muscles really misbehave and feel 'tight' or tense:

• Joints lack stability
• Chronic stress
• Habitual stress reflex
• Using 1 side of the body
• Guarding an old or current injury

I think it's also important to note that 'tight' is a sensation and therefore open to individual interpretation. The term 'tight' doesn't refer to a specific muscle behaviour or state.

Let's delve deeper into each of these 5x reasons why muscles really misbehave and feel as if they're 'tight'.

1) Joints Lack Stability

Ligaments connect and stabilise your bones. They're a tough, fibrous connective tissue containing high amounts of collagen for strength and some elastic fibres. This allows ligaments to both support the joints and allow them to move.

Ligament laxity is when ligaments are too loose and don't provide enough support, so your joints feel unstable, inflamed or painful. In extreme cases your joints may spontaneously dislocate. 

Having loose joints is quite common in growing children but in adults ligament laxity can be caused by:

• Hypermobility eg. Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS) or Marfan Syndrome 
• Injury eg. ankle sprain
• Repetitive movements
• Sports that train extreme mobility eg. dance, gymnastics, diving
• Pregnancy - the hormone relaxin causes ligament laxity for childbirth

When ligaments are lax the muscles can be recruited to support the joints instead. This can feel like your muscles are always 'tight' even if you're super flexible and bendy. You might get muscle spasms, cramps, pain and numbness from reduced circulation.

2) Chronic Stress

Stress is a normal physiological response to something exciting or potentially threatening in your environment. 

Our cave ancestors might have got stressed when hunting for food or running away from a sabre tooth tiger. Nowadays in modern society we might feel stress sitting in a traffic jam, being late for work or trying to juggle multiple commitments.

But our brain, nervous system and body still react to stress in the same.

When your brain detects something exciting or scary the sympathetic nervous system initiates the 'fight or flight' response. Adrenaline and noradrenaline are released almost instantly into the bloodstream. This prepares your body for action - more energy and blood are released to the major muscles, heart rate and blood pressure rise. 

After the initial burst of adrenaline and noradrenaline your body then releases cortisol. Cortisol keeps you on high alert and safe for a sufficient period of time after the initial danger has passed.

Once cortisol levels reach a certain level in the blood they trigger receptors in the brain that stops the release of any more cortisol and allows the body to return back to balance (homeostasis). This shut off response is called a negative feedback loop.

If you're exposed to chronic stress these receptors become down regulated ie. they stop responding and it takes higher and higher levels of cortisol to shut down production. Therefore circulating levels of cortisol remain elevated. 

In short bursts cortisol reduces inflammation. But if cortisol levels stay high it can weaken the immune system and increase inflammation, soreness and pain. 

3) Habitual Stress Reflex

In previous issues of The Movement Chronicle we've looked at the 3x stress reflexes. Click HERE to read more about these 3x stress reflexes and how they affect your body.

If you're experiencing stress often your body will move into one or more of the stress reflexes frequently. 

What the brain does a lot it does really well. These stress reflexes can end up feeling so familiar you adopt them as your normal posture.

Now you're using your muscles in a way they weren't designed by nature for. 

Maybe you're continually in the Green Light (go-go-go) reflex, so your lower back muscles are constantly contracting. You have nagging back ache and feel stiff bending forwards.

Or you do a lot of computer work and you've adopted the Red Light (startle) reflex aka "desk workers posture". So your neck, shoulders and upper back always feel stiff and tense. 

4) Using 1 Side of the Body

Using one side of the body more can lead to changes in muscle behaviour and pain.

Activities, jobs or sports that train or use the dominant side only can lead to you moving into the Trauma reflex. This is a side protection stress reflex.

The muscles on one side of the body contract and that side of the body gets shorter. You might notice a leg length discrepancy, hip hitch, shoulders unlevel or a spinal scoliosis.

The muscles on the dominant side become over-used and over-trained, whereas the opposite side becomes deconditioned and weaker, compounding the imbalance between the two sides.

You may notice muscle fatigue, soreness, less range of motion and tension more on one side than the other. You could experience pain or injury on one side of the body more than the other side.

5) Guarding an Old or Current Injury

Muscles can brace to immobilise and protect an injured body part, but may not get the memo to relax after the injury has healed.

Remember, what the brain does a lot it gets really good at.

Say you roll and sprain your ankle. Your lower leg and foot muscles will probably brace to support the injured ankle joint (refer back to ligament laxity), reduce pain and minimise further harm. 

You'll very likely also limp to take the weight off the sprained ankle. This combination of bracing muscles and limping effectively closes off the injured ankle to stop your bodyweight going through the joint and causing more damage.

But when the initial injury has healed your body may continue to compensate. This new way of moving will now be feeling familiar and your brain may not want to return to the original movement pattern.

So if you sprain your ankle and continue to avoid putting your full weight through the joint, you may experience tight calf muscles, knee, hip or lower back pain on the same or opposite side to the initial injury. 

When muscles feel 'tight' this is a sensation or a signal that the muscle is unhappy or doing something it wasn't designed to do.

'Tightness' doesn't describe a specific muscle behaviour or state. 

Muscle 'tightness' is a symptom that something is out of balance in your body. It's often NOT the root cause of your pain, but it can provide valuable insights.

Let's go back to the example of the ankle sprain. 

• You have tight calf muscles in your right leg that briefly feel better after stretching or massage but go back to feeling tight a few days later. 
• You also have right knee pain and a sore, stiff left hip.
• Although you feel pain in your knee and hip, and you're bothered by your tight calf muscles these are NOT the root issue.
• The root issue is the sprain when you twisted your ankle a few years ago that was quite painful for a few weeks but eventually got better. The injury resulted in the ankle ligament losing it's strength so your right foot pronates inwards making your inside foot arch flatter.  Now your calf muscles are trying to support and stabilise the ankle joint. Because they weren't designed for this job, you subconsciously shift your weight into your right knee and left hip, which means they're being over-used.

Exploring movement and muscle behaviour is your route to reducing chronic pain and getting lasting relief from those 'tight' muscles.

NEXT STEPS

• Come to a Stretch, Yoga or Pilates class with me - here you can spend time observing how your body responds to different movements in a guided sequence
• Book into the "Moving Away From Pain With The BYB Method", a 2 hour workshop showing you how to reduce chronic pain and release muscle tension so you can move with ease and joy again. Sunday 3rd September, 1pm to 3pm - click HERE for all the info.
• Attend a half-day mind-body retreat - these are deeply relaxing, fun, social small group experiences typically held in various locations within easy reach of Worthing, West Sussex. The next one is on Sunday 3rd December,
• Subscribe to my email list to receive "The Movement Chronicle", a weekly e-newsletter delivered directly into your inbox every Monday morning,

To find out more about my classes and retreats, or to join my email list you can contact me via any of these channels:

• Email at norma.pearson1@ntlworld.com
• DM me on Facebook Messenger 
• WhatsApp message to 07801 867361.