What Causes Muscle Stiffness And How Can You Prevent It?

What exactly is muscle stiffness?  It is the feeling you get when your muscles feel tight and you face more difficulty to move than you normally do.  This phenomenon is pretty common and almost everyone has to suffer from this at some point in their lives. Athletes complain of stiff hamstrings, people who work for long hours in front of screens succumb to stiffness in the neck, Incorrect sleeping positions may lead to some pain caused in the arm. All these points may make one believe that this occurs only because of physical stress and often end up looking for the best ointment to relieve it.

Why does muscle stiffness occur? Contrary to common belief, this is the lack of balance in your muscles at a given joint rather than excessive stress on that particular muscle. It is the nervous system’s response to when it feels that a muscle is not ready for what you are going to do, for the physical load. At this point, it will delegate the task to be performed by a different muscle that it deems is more ready for it. A suited example would be, when the gluteus muscles are not ready, the hamstring is what compensates it. Now since the hamstring isn’t optimal for this function, the movement is not the best and it leads to stiffness around the hip region.

How can you prevent this stiffness? Stretching is underrated. But it pretty much is what helps keep away from stiffness and smoothens movement. Increased flexibility is something we must try to achieve as that will help prevent the stiffening of our muscles.

There are various types of Stretches. Let’s look at a few of those. A passive stretch is when you stretch your body till the extent of which your body feels a stretch and then hold it there for about 20 to 30 seconds. Great for stretching specific muscles, this does not treat the weak muscles. Active stretches are those when one group of muscles contacts to stretch its opposing muscle group. This works well as it addresses both the weak and tight muscles. Great to do in the morning, these could be a little too aggressive for you if you have unstable joints

Isometrics, though not very common, is a great stretch for the body. It is extremely effective to loosen the tightened muscles. The dynamic stretch is another one of the stretches that helps muscles loosen up.. Very similar to the active stretch, the only difference is their velocity. This one’s much faster than the previous one and a good example of this would be walking ahead and kicking the keg upwards.

Stability exercises and balance are very closely related to flexibility. These help to regain control of all the muscles present at a particular joint. The plan is an apt example of stability exercises as it helps loosen the lower back.

Let loose and ensure that your muscles do too. We hope that these methods help and you will no longer writhe in pain for long periods of time. Always carry the best ointment for pain relief and use it at times on emergency. We wish you a happy muscle health.