What Are Knots?

We get asked this all the time. “what is a muscle knot and how do they get there?” 

 

There are a lot of differing views and science is still to make up it’s mind as to what is exactly going on with knots but this is our take on it with the information we have. 

 

‘Knots’ in muscles are essentially compacted tissue that can happen over time due to poor posture, stress, general tension or scar tissue from an injury. 

 

The extracellur fluid that flows through muscle tissue should have the consistancy of water, bringing all the good nutrients to the cells and allowing fibres to glide next to each other. 

 

Through poor posture, tension or scar tissue, that fluid can become gel like causing the fibres to stick together and create compacted tissue or what we know as knots. 

 

Our favourite analogy is food based, it always comes back to food! 

 

Imagine healthy muscle fibres to be like dried spaghetti in a packet, all going in the same direction and gliding around each other easily. Now imagine you’ve cooked that spaghetti in a pan and left it for a while, what happens? It becomes all stuck togther and tangled, well that’s how we see knots in the tissues. 

 

To fix these knots, or adhesions, our job is to bring heat to the area through deep massage and break down the adhesions with frictions or cross fibre movements that force the knots into fragments. With more lengthening, flowing strokes the lymph system takes these particles away and the fibres are re-aligned and have full range of movement. Voila..you can move freely again! 

 

Active knots are called trigger points. These are compacted areas of tissue that cause referred pain to other areas of the body and are themselves sore to palpate. 

 

We can deal with these using techniques such as trigger point therapy where we hold pressure on a trigger point for a period of time and release allowing all the blood to rush in with all the goodies like oxygen and nutrients. 

 

Common areas that people have knots are typically in your shoulders, back or gluteals. We deal with this day in day out so if you feel like you have knots or trigger points we can help you. Simply give us a call or book online today and we will get to work ironing them out so you can move without pain or discomfort!