Muscle Knots
If only it were that simple…
Stress doesn’t just come from work or home but it can also be from pre match or race nerves, this too causes a similar response.
So how did it get there?
This triggers a chemical reaction; firstly blood vessels narrow which limits blood flow and therefore oxygen to muscle which injuries it. It also causes the pH (or acidity) to increase. As a result chemicals flood into the muscle which sets of ‘nociceptors’ (these are little receptors that send messages to the brain which creates the pain we feel). At the same time our ‘sympathetic nervous system’ is triggered (this controls the amount of adrenaline we release)
These processes combined then lead to different set of chemicals to be released which increases the number of contractions of muscle fibers in the area. Meaning the fibers are constantly contracting and create this area of ‘taught bands’ or ‘knot’ that we feel and cause pain.
So what can be done to help?
It seems that the best way to ‘release’ the area is using physiotherapy interventions, here at LRS Physiotherapy we use evidence based techniques to help resolve these problems, they include;