Are tight muscles really the problem?

In any hands on health practice you will always come across people who are complaining of tight muscles. Often the practitioner’s response is just to rub the tight muscle sometimes really hard, stick a needle in it, use the latest magic rub or more recently start using cannabis oil.

My problem with that approach is that they don’t try to understand why the muscle is tight in the first place so the problem nearly always comes back again.

I have written about muscle injuries before, they fall broadly into two categories:

–     Acute damage i.e. strain or tear, which are really just the same but differ in severity and how long it will take to heal,

–     Repetitive strain injuries which can be classed as micro tears or small repetitive trauma over time

If you have a muscle injury you will be able to pin point the time it happened or know the reason why it is there. If you find yourself with tight muscles but don’t really know why, then the chances are that you don’t have a muscle injury but a problem with your sensory motor system.

Muscles never work on their own. They always work in complex patterns. If you think of picking up something heavy off the floor, you will be using nearly every muscle you have in your body, either to lift the object or stabilise your joints as you do so. The system your body uses to control this is the sensory motor system. To work properly the sensory motor system takes inputs from sensors mainly in your skin & muscles. The most interesting thing about this system is that your brain does not control it. It is controlled by complex reflexive arcs, through your spinal cord, which is autonomic meaning you don’t have to think about it.

There is very little anyone can do about the output of your nervous system; but there is a lot we can do about the input to the sensory motor system. By finding out what is interfering with the input from these sensors and correcting it we can achieve very remarkable results very quickly, sometimes immediately to improve your output. To do this I use a system of muscle testing, which is a way to measure your output and then use the same process to find ways to fix it.

Some common symptoms that can be explained by muscle inhibition are pain, tightness, discomfort and quite often just feeling tired. The reason you can feel tired is that trying to use muscle that are not working properly takes a lot of energy. Additionally the common problems of planter fasciitis, tennis or golfers elbow, tendonitis and wear and tear will all have elements of interference to the sensory motor system.

Just as there are many symptoms that can be attributed to this interference there are also a number of reasons that can cause it.  These can include – misalignment in your spine or other joints, nutritional deficiencies, exposure to toxins and often metal piercing your skin or in your mouth.

By finding the root cause of the problem you are presenting with and removing the interference will give your body the best chance to heal itself and you will get better quicker and improve your function long term.