What does it mean to have 'tight' muscles?

Question

People commonly refer to muscles as being 'tense' or 'tight'. My girlfriend, for example, when she gives me a back massage, will say 'wow, the muscles in this spot on your back are really tight'.
I don't really understand this. Your muscle fibres are tight when you contract them, conciously or not. A contraction must result, however, in a movement, or a counter-contraction from an opposing muscle. How can a muscle be 'tight' in absence of movement or counter-contractions?

Ah, muscle density. Sure, that's a possibility. That doesn't explain, however, why your muscles would be tight only some of the time. Massage therapists, I assume, try to relax the 'tightness', but the 'muscle fibre density' explanation wouldn't allow muscles to become un-tight in a period of a few hours or days.

Answer 1

It means that the muscles may have lactic acid built up within the muscle fibers, or other toxins. It can also mean that the muscle fibers have "knots" in them that is preventing them from fulling relaxing or flexing. This results in limited range of motion(ROM). This can also be caused by dehydration, most of us do not drink enough water.

Using the phrase tight is just a way of explaining it in general terms. However if you see a bodybuilder, or a person who is "toned" and their muscles seem hard and solid that may be someones definition of tight, but it is NOT healthy. No matter what amount of tone your muscles have they should be flexible, and "loose". If you touch your own muscles or someone else's they should move underneath the pressure of your hand. If you rub them they should feel like "putty" that you can manipulate. If to the touch it feels stiff and solid with no movement that person will lack ROM, and greatly increase the possibility of serious injury. It will also feel sore and "tight".

Why do you think they get football players to practice Yoga and Pilate's?

I'm a Massage Therapist, and all my clients come to me for chronic injury/pain, and "tight" muscles. Massage helps to rebalance the muscles allowing them to fully relax. Once this occurs, doing regular stretching routines can help your muscles maintain full range of motion. When I'm finished working on them, they truly understand how "loose" their muscles can feel, and how much healthier and less stressed out they feel.

Answer 2

1

Answer 3

Great answer Angy.
As far as stretching goes, much of the heat in the positions taken by the protagonists disappears if the question of purpose is raised. The stretching required preparing for a sporting event or workout is substantially different to the stretching best used after the event or workout. A different kind of stretching again is indicated for the chronic neck or back pain sufferer, and yet another kind of stretching is required by the individual who wants to know what future activities will be required to improve posture or to redress muscle imbalances. And the many weekend athletes on golf and tennis courts around the world, simply need a bit of stretching to maintain the range of movement their sports require.
Before expanding on these ideas, consider the family moggy. If you pick it up, it seems boneless (each end of it hanging over the edges of your hand) and yet ethnologists tell us that the cat family enjoys the highest muslce-to-skeleton weight ratio of any mammals. Picturing holding a dog of similar size will make the point clearer: it holds itself rigidly on the palm of the hand. Returning to the cat, one is amazed to discover how quickly all that muscle power may be mobilised if you try to make it do something it does not want to do---a cat in a sack is a powerful metaphor. Lastly: if the dog and the cat fight, the dog will be prancing about in an agitated state long after the cat has totally relaxed---its body completely soft and supple as it grooms itself (a default 'routine' they invoke if in any doubt as to what to do next). So, the major difference between these two animals is that the cat can move with great speed and power when necessary, yet relax completely an instant later; the dog displays behaviour closer to ours: quick to arouse but in comparison slow to return to the normal state.
One reason cats move the way they do, with such power and grace, is that they have a greater range of movement at all joints (shoulder, spine and hips) than dogs. Another reason is that they have a greater capacity to relax---both during a powerful movement and after the activity has concluded. Relaxing the muscles that perform movements opposite to the ones being used facilitates speed (agonist and antagonist groups).

Answer 4

Touch a girl's shoulder (who doesn't work out ) and then touch the shoulder of a bodybuilder. Even when relaxed, the bobdybuilder's shoulder is tighter because the muscle fiber is denser and has smaller fat cells in between or covering the muscle fibers.

Answer 5

My muscles are tight after a workout and the next day after a workout. The muscles have not gotten rid of the waste yet from the sugar utilization during exercise.

Answer 6

Muscles too strong

Answer 7

Muscle spasms are the result from low potassium and stress. If you feel your muscle tensing, or "tightening" up, you might want to try and stretch that area.

Answer 8

your muscles have a natural tonality, it allows us to maintain the shape of our body, someone who has more worked out muscles, has tighter muscles, but also it could be a result of lactic acid buildup in the muscle.

Answer 9

When the toning of the muscles can be seen..

Answer 10

yoga?