What is a muscle knot?

Ever suffered with that tight feeling in your neck and shoulders? Does it sometimes feel like there is a painful ball of muscle that you keep getting the urge to rub? Well that my friend is a muscle knot!

The technical name is a Myofascial trigger point; but the more colloquial term is … muscle knot! This can simply be described as an area of muscle which is stuck in contraction. Each movement we make causes our muscles work together to lengthen and contract making our limbs move; even typing at this computer means that my finger muscles have had to contract to cause a bending movement as I rhythmically tap away at the the keyboard.

Often muscles we use a lot can get stuck and not fully lengthen/relax. In this partial state of contraction the blood supply to the muscle is reduced causing waste products to build up in an isolated area. An example of a waste product is lactic acid; this causes the muscles to feel achy and stiff. Re-lengthening those muscles increases the blood flow to the area; bringing nutrients to the muscles and removing the waste products. This results in that achy/stiff feeling being released.

How do I ease a muscle knot?

Now you know what a muscle knot is here are some simple self help tips!

Self Massage: Gently rubbing the area of tension/pain will help to increase blood circulation to the area and encourage movement into the locked tissues.

Holding a firm pressure onto the point of pain can trick the muscle into lengthening when the pressure is released. However, how hard is too hard to press?? Most people can identify a “good pain” as something that feels like it is helping the body. The key is to try and focus on relaxing the muscles; if you feel like you are involuntarily starting to tense up, then ease up the pressure otherwise you will be defeating the object of the exercise.

Stretching: Stretching helps to elongate those muscles and release muscle tightness and congestion. It also promotes mobility in the joints and muscle groups which can become stiff due to posture or work habits. For example someone who works at a desk may suffer with tightness in the shoulders. This can be eased by regularly circling the arm to encourage movement on the shoulders. Neck stretches can also help the muscles that travel from the base of our skull to our collarbone or shoulder blade.

Heat: Placing a heat pack or hot water bottle on tight muscles will help to increase the blood flow to the area which in turn will help to promote the removal of waste products and toxin build up. After heat has been applied it is good to then move on to self massage and stretch to get further relief.

Why pay for a treatment?

Self help is key to pain management and preventing tension build up. However if a problem has been around for years then there is a substantial build up of tension that won’t disperse overnight. Knowledge of muscle groups and the bodies mechanical structure means a practitioner should be able to assess the problem in a way that you may not have considered before.

A massage treatment can go that bit further than we are able to do ourselves. It can be hard to keep muscles in one area of the body relaxed when applying force through the arms. Whereas in a massage treatment all you need to do if relax and breathe as the practitioner applies the pressure. A range of techniques can be used to combine stretches and joint mobility into a treatment.

Massage should not just be viewed as a solution to muscle tension/pain but also as a good body MOT, a preventative treatment. If you can catch tension build up before it is a serious problem you will be saving yourself a lot of pain. Our bodies take a lot of strain in our day to day and culturally we do not factor in enough stops for it to restore itself. Massage is creating space for just that.