For many of us, muscle tightness is a way of life. Every time we get a massage, the therapist exclaims, “You’ve got so many knots!” Like we didn’t know that already. And touching our toes? Forget about it. Our hammies are way too tight. So are our hip flexors; they’re super-shortened.
So we stretch, stretch, and stretch. Maybe we use a foam-roller or schedule another massage appointment.
But experts are now saying that we may be thinking about our tight, knotted up muscles all wrong. “Some buzz terms you may have heard when it comes to stretching and foam rolling are muscle lengthening, breaking down scar tissue, freeing up adhesions, or remodeling of collagen,” says Nicholas M. Licameli, P.T., D.P.T., assistant clinical director of Professional Physical Therapy in Nutley, New Jersey. “However, research does not support these claims. In reality, we as humans cannot produce the amount of force necessary to remodel our tissues. Our tissues are much more resilient than that, and it actually takes thousands of pounds of force to accomplish this.”
What’s Really Causing That “Tight” Feeling?
Increasingly, physical therapists and exercise physiologists are starting to promote the idea that muscle tightness is really a matter of increased muscle tone, he says. However, the muscle “tone” that most fitness magazines, websites, and even many trainers talk about—getting “toned” so you can see those nice little lines of the deltoids or triceps beneath the skin of the shoulders or upper arms—doesn’t really exist. You can create that aesthetic effect by building muscle and maintaining or achieving a relatively low body fat percentage, but that has nothing to do with muscle tone.
Instead, real, physiological muscle tone, also called human resting muscle tone, refers to a resting, low level of contraction in muscle fibers that extends to their connective tissues, or fascia, and contributes to posture and stability. Currently, various theories exist as to what actually causes this tension.
“It’s one of those areas that get really messy really fast,” says exercise physiologist Mike T. Nelson, Ph.D., C.S.C.S. “What’s a trigger point? We used to think it was changes occurring in the structure of the muscle. But now it seems to be nervous system contracting a small amount of muscle.”
For example, most experts currently believe that the nervous system controls resting muscle tone, with increased sympathetic activity (akin to the gas pedal in a car) in muscles leading to an increase in muscle tone and increase parasympathetic activity (like the breaks) decreasing resting muscle tone, Licameli says. The more a muscle is bombarded with neurological orders to contract—like when shallow breathing, times of stress, scrunching your shoulders while typing—the more likely that muscle’s new “normal” or resting length will be more contracted.
“If you look at a human cadaver, there is no nervous system activity,” Nelson says. “Nothing is very tight, and there are no ‘knots.’ That’s an extreme case, but it shows that the nervous system must play a role.”
Meanwhile, research from the University of Illinois asserts that muscle tone exists independently of the central nervous system. It theorizes that the cells that give muscles their structure may contain specialized receptors that sense outside forces and respond by generating signals to produce and maintain a level of tension, or contraction.
Even proponents of neurological feedback influencing muscle tone don’t dispute that other factors also have to be at play. “If muscle tone is systemic,” Nelson asks, “Why is sometimes it only your right calf that’s tight? We don’t really know what that is.”
However, pretty much everyone agrees that what you might feel as muscle tightness can occur due to postural and mechanical misalignments. “Sure, maybe you have more neurologic activity occurring in your hamstrings, but most of the time, ‘tight’ hamstrings are mechanical,” Nelson says. “Anterior pelvic tilt pulls on the hamstrings so that they feel tight. pelvis tilt it anterior pulling the hamstrings to their maximal length, which will of course make them feel tight. But they aren’t contracted at all.”
The same issue can occur in muscles and joints throughout the body. A muscle attaches to bone in two fixed locations, so it cannot be pulled any tighter than the distance between those two locations. However, when the spacing between those joints or bone surfaces changes due to improper alignment or body positioning, a sensation of tightness can occur.
How to Achieve Healthier Muscle Tone
So, with all of that mess, how do you actually go about reducing excess muscle tone and finding a happier level of resting contraction? Here are some strategies everyone can agree on.
Stretch, but not before workouts.
Static stretching (think: bend and hold) immediately before exercise reduces power, strength, and stability, Nelson explains. However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t perform it at other times throughout the day when feeling tight.
PNF, short for proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation, is a form of stretching that addresses the neuromuscular factors that can limit range of motion. All muscles are equipped with proprioceptors, specialized sensors that share information with the brain on that muscle’s length, the amount of tension it is under, as well as how quickly it is contracting or stretching. These proprioceptors can act as a sort of fail-safe, protecting muscles from stretching to an unfamiliar length. However, by contracting a muscle mid-stretch, you more or less bypass certain fail-safes, allowing you to achieve a deeper end range of motion.
PNF is typically performed with a partner. However, you can also apply PNF to static stretches on your own. To do so, move into a stretch and hold that position for 10 seconds. Next, immediately contract the muscle you’re trying to stretch. For instance, if you’re trying to stretch your hips in pigeon pose, forcefully press your lead knee into the floor by squeezing that side’s glutes. Hold that contraction for 6 seconds. Then relax and try to ease further into that same stretch.
Deal with your stress.
“Stretching, deep breathing, foam rolling, and meditation all decrease global muscle tone and tap into our body’s rest, digest, and recover system, also known as the parasympathetic nervous system,” Licameli says.
Combatting stress can also reduce the likelihood of you “holding” your tension in certain muscles, such as the traps, which tend to get overworked with stress-induced clenching and shallow, or chest, breathing, Nelson says.
Change positions.
We all know that sitting all day is bad, but standing all day might be just as bad. “Our bodies are meant to move and respond best when we are frequently moving around,” Todd Maurer, M.S.P.T., C.E.S., a physical therapist and corrective exercise specialist Orlando Health South Seminole Hospital. “Set your phone or an alarm at work to remind you to get up and move around every hour.”
Doing so will help prevent any muscles from staying in highly contracted or lengthened positions for long periods of time, which could contribute to increased muscle tone.
Foam roll, then strength train.
Foam rolling promotes short-term increases in range of motion, according to a comprehensive review published in the International Journal of Sports Physical Therapy. Licameli stresses the transiency of the effect, but says that you can capitalize on it by following up on foam rolling with full range of motion exercises.
“I recommend performing soft tissue work between your warm up sets,” he says. “It will allow you to test and retest as well as gradually load the movement, given you are gradually increasing load with each warm up set. Take a squat for example. You feel tightness and restriction in your hips halfway into the descent of your squat. You test and retest your squat and notice you are able to squat deeper and with less tightness. As you load the squat and work up to your working or heavier sets, this newly achieved movement pattern will be trained. Training this movement with loads will, over time, lead to long term improvements in tissue and movement quality.”
In fact, a 2017 study in Isokinetics and Exercise Science shows that strength training improves flexibility in both men and women. Meanwhile, previous research published in the North American Journal of Sports Physical Therapy suggests that eccentric strength exercises may provide the greatest benefit to flexibility and range of motion.
Address any muscle weaknesses.
A comprehensive strength training program can also help address muscle tone by promoting better posture and body alignment. For example, strengthening the core muscles can help to correct anterior pelvic tilt, thereby reducing any pull placed on the hamstrings to ease feelings of tension and mobility restrictions there, Nelson says.
The most common muscle weakness, which could potentially throw off posture and alignment, occur in the core, upper back, and glutes. Exercises that strengthen these muscles should make up a large part of your training routine.