When they come to us for therapy, our customers frequently describe their muscles as tight, stiff, cramping, and painful.

Although finding strategies to alleviate the discomfort at its source may seem like an impossible task, when we experience physical discomfort, it can have an impact on our overall wellbeing. At Massage Experts, we concentrate on the many muscle areas that hurt and feel tight for our clients. Our Registered Massage Therapists (RMT) employ various therapeutic techniques and varied pressure to enhance blood flow to a particular area and stretch out the painful tissue that creates tightness.

While many people turn to massage to loosen up their muscles, many people who feel muscle tightness may wonder why their muscles tighten up in the first place. To help you relieve muscle tension and return to your pain-free self, this article will start by addressing this question.

What contributes to stiff muscles?

You can characterize the feeling of stiff or tight muscles as difficult to express. Because it can feel so different for everyone, it can be challenging to describe just what muscle tightness feels like. However, the inability to let muscles relax to the state they should be in nature defines muscular rigidity. Some people feel sharp pain, while others only sense a cramp or struggle to move.

The human body has roughly 600 muscles, divided into three types: skeletal, cardiac, and smooth. Muscle tightness is frequently affected by skeletal muscles, which make up 30–40% of our entire body mass. We can move, function, and go about our daily lives because of this muscle group.

Our muscles normally contract when our brain sends a nerve signal to each muscle in a particular body part, indicating that we desire to utilize or move that particular body part. Normally, after contracting, muscles return to being relaxed until they are required again. But occasionally, our muscles can be fully or partially contracted for a set amount of time.

Stress is one of the main factors that create muscle tightness. Our bodies and minds can be negatively affected by stress, which can manifest throughout the body as physical tension and pain, as well as more complicated symptoms like high blood pressure or digestive issues. Regarding tight muscles, stress can affect the nervous system’s performance, which must be at its best for our muscles to relax from a constricted position. Our muscles might frequently suffer when our neural system is affected.

Other causes of muscular pain include:

After a hard workout, you may develop delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS), which can result in a variety of physical symptoms like excruciating pain, discomfort, and restricted joint range of motion (Athletes commonly experience DOMS, and a sports massage can work to target the various areas that cause pain).

Dehydration: Since our muscles (and kidneys) are made up of 79 percent water, not drinking enough fluids might make it feel more pain in the joints and muscles. Getting adequate water into our bodies helps maintain our muscles and tendons from feeling tight and can lubricate our joints so that we can move without experiencing any pain.

We spend a lot of time sitting at our desks because many of us work from home due to the epidemic. When we don’t move about and exercise our muscles regularly, tightness might develop, making it even harder to move. A sedentary lifestyle can keep muscles constrained, which over time can provide the sensation of tightness.

Poor posture: Whether sitting, standing, or lying down, it is important to keep appropriate posture, even though it is not always the simplest task to complete. Muscle and joint pain could result from musculoskeletal imbalance brought on by poor posture.

Muscle strain: When we strain a body region, it can affect how our muscles and tendons work and injure the soft tissue. Keeping up regular massages can assist with this.

We firmly advise contacting your healthcare professional to rule out any significant causes if your muscular tightness is intense.

Stretching may keep us flexible and allow us to move freely, which is a terrific approach to help loosen up tight muscles. Regular stretching has also been demonstrated to reduce the amount of discomfort that may be felt in different parts of the body.

There are several areas of the body that can benefit from stretching. For instance, if your hamstrings and calves feel tight, you may want to perform stretches that target these muscles. There are stretches for nearly every portion of the body, and when performed appropriately and securely, they may be quite therapeutic.

Another excellent method for keeping our muscles flexible and untightened is massage therapy. While there are many benefits to massage, especially when it becomes a regular part of your routine, one of the most important ones is its capacity to improve blood flow to tight muscles.