Over the past several years, there have been many questions asked of me concerning what causes tight muscles, how do they get like that, can it be changed, etc. And the variety and complexity of these questions are numerous to list. So, to put a bit of a cap on the deep well of questions, the defined discussion will be narrowed down to “muscle dysfunction”.

There are approximately 250 skeletal muscles that are responsible for body movements. The strength and stability of our body depends on this soft tissue; not only including our muscles, but ligaments, tendons and joint capsules. When we consider a few causes of muscle dysfunction, such as, 1) repetitive stress—overuse of a muscle causing sustained contraction, 2) joint injury—reflexive spasm or weakness in muscles around the joint, 3) poor posture—habitual sitting, standing or moving in poor posture creating cumulative stress, and 4) emotional stress that can create sustained muscle contraction; it becomes clear that functional movements can become a mechanical disorder through muscle dysfunction.

With some imagination, the following is a visual to help support the point. Take an 8 1/2 x 11 piece of paper and place it flat on a table. Without wadding it up, place your hand diagonally on the paper and crinkle up the paper “lightly” and then let go. What you should see is not a flat piece of paper! Ha! Okay, seriously, the paper will have obvious distortions. Begin looking for (2-3 or more) crinkle lines that connect at an apex and draw a small circle around that point. Find several, then lay it out flat again as much as possible. What is inside of those circles represent an entrapped nerve, adhesion, trigger point, tight area, etc. Also note, the original flat piece of paper symbolizes a functional muscle, say your quad, and the now distorted, semi flat paper with circled apex’s symbolize the precursor’s of muscle dysfunction.

This example might be a bit overstated, but my hope is that it helps the interested to see their question(s) more clearly. Knowledge is power, and I believe that bringing more awareness to my clients through words or touch is huge. And one of my main goals is to be impactful in resetting, restoring and resting my clients area of dysfunction to allow for more efficient movement without the taxing restrictions.