Let's pause the stretch that you're doing to relieve the tight muscle and talk about where that tightness is coming from.
We often stretch to release the “tight” muscle but only thinking the “tightness” in the muscle is only coming from over worked, tensed, contracted muscle. Which could be correct but sometime it could be the complete opposite because the tight sensation can also be caused by overly stretched, taut muscle as well. And if this is your case, stretching your taut muscle will not give you long term improvement but only a short term relief.
Below diagram, on the left, we have the hyper toned, shortened muscle and on the right, the hypo toned, lengthened muscle which both of those muscle type can cause tight sensation. How will the taut muscle can cause tight sensation? You can imagine an elastic band, pulled away each end far as it can go and that is what taut muscles are experiencing.
We all form both shortened and lengthened muscles naturally by our dominant use of few muscle group which isn't a huge problem. The problem only comes when these opposite muscles aren’t having the similar level of force and they are off-balance cause of the long term incorrect posture, overly dominant use of specific muscle, and neglected muscle use.
For an example we’ll say that your job
requires a physical work. The work makes you to flex and shorten your biceps often which then the triceps will have to relax or contract eccentrically to control and act as an opposite force. Long term use of this one-side dominant motion will start to cause fatigue and tightness in the opposite muscle (triceps in this case) due to the damage to the muscle cell and buildup of trigger points. And because the taut muscle can cause tight sensation like it’s contracted, it tricks people to think that they need a nice long massage stroke and deep stretching to the muscle. Which helps and give relief in short term, however, for the long-term improvement it needs specific treatment which will tone up the muscle.
So how does Remedial massage treat the taut muscle?
Taut muscle loose the healthy muscle tone which make them prone for muscle strain, immobility and stiffening due to the lack of circulation, rubbing muscle fiber. With Remedial massage therapy, the taut muscles are treated differently to the contracted muscle. Main goal is to increase the circulation, tone up the soft tissue, releasing the hidden trigger points to increase mobility. Then after the treatment appropriate stretches for the shortened muscle (not the taut muscle) which causing the imbalance and some light exercise for the taut muscle to improve the posture and stopping the cycle of imbalance.
We have to see our body as a whole, working in harmony and understand why is the muscle lengthening and shortening. Off balance of muscle relationship mostly comes from our posture and it is quite difficult to modify how you sit, stand, or walk which you did forever in a short moment. But bringing balance to our muscle use, being awareness of how you move with specific treatment and strategy will improve slowly but truly.
Written by Seonkyo Kim; Dip. RMT
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