The anatomy of muscle tissue is a beautiful orchestration of chemical, neurological and mechanical reactions which allow for movement. If you were to look under a microscope at a piece of muscle tissue, you would see that it resembles a bunch of long strands grouped together that look like a rope. Those strands (the rope) contain smaller elements such as individual rope strands which is where the contraction happens. As these smaller elements contract they bunch up or fold over on each other during contraction; the muscle shortens. All of this happens when the nerve signal tells the muscle to contract. This message is sent as a voluntary movement, a reflex or involuntary movement, neurological dysfunction or interrupted signals somewhere in the system, the list goes on and on. Some we have control over, some we don’t.
Some muscle tissue in the body increases only it’s cell volume, the cell itself grows larger (hypertrophy) such as cardiac muscle but these cells cannot divide or reproduce. Smooth muscle tissue, the ones we’re dealing with increase cell numbers (hyperplasia). They divide, reproduce and have the ability to increase their volume.
Now it’s a little easier to “see” what’s actually going on inside the muscle. The “knot” we feel in a muscle is a group of these fibers that have not released or gone back to the original non-contracted state. They are still bunched up or have become entangled which causes the pain and aching we feel. The range of motion the muscle should be able to do is now lessened. Foam Rolling is also very good for untangling these fibers!
Problems associated with short muscles
Short muscles constrain movement. The body will always try to find it’s balance and compensate somewhere else. Muscles move the bones they are attached to like intricate little pulley systems. If a muscle is too tight on one side the other side will try to pull it back into alignment. Chronic tightness pulls fragile but amazingly durable joints out of alignment. Even a millimetre off over 20 years can eventually cause a problem.
- Stiff Movement
- Joint Pain/Damage
- Headaches
- Restless Sleep
- Chronic Pain
- Fatigue
- Injury of the muscle tissue
Do we have to think about holding our head up to read this screen? On the contrary we have to think about relaxing it to allow it to fall over. Think about all the things you do on a daily basis that require no conscious thought, holding your shoulder up too high to use the mouse, your head forward to read this article, are you breathing or holding your breath? Somehow, somewhere, someone was on the right track when they said “if you make that face long enough it will stay that way”, so will the rest of our bodies. How long can you hold a 20lb. weight before you get tired? These constant contractions need energy, oxygen and blood supply to happen, so you can imagine how tired one could get squeezing these muscles reducing it’s oxygen and blood supply. Too much energy is now wasted “holding” these positions instead of maximizing thinking, digesting or creating beautiful artwork.
Getting more energy to where it needs to be
NEVER try to overstretch a tight muscle. If your going to stretch the body warm up by moving briskly for about 5 minutes to get the blood flowing. If your sitting at a desk, get up and move around slowly and breath. Brocade exercises are perfect for this. If you try and stretch a tight muscle you can do damage to the tendon. You should always feel the stretch in the muscle not on the bone it’s attached to, if you do, back off on the stretch. When a muscle is stretched blood flows more freely increasing oxygen, you feel more relaxed and that freed up energy can now be used to do other things.
Sometimes stretching isn’t enough when muscles become overly tightened or adhesion’s have occurred. Foam rollers are perfect for this. As you roll slowly over the foam, pressure is applied to these muscle fibers separating them from each other allowing blood to flow in quickly. You can now get a deeper stretch. There are many different densities of foam rollers from hard to soft. These happen to be my all around favorite.
