How can Osteopathy Help With Knots in Muscles?
What are Muscle Knots?
Knots in muscles are often described by people who suffer from back tightness or tension. These can correspond to myofascial trigger points, which cause pain and discomfort throughout the body.
Tight spots in muscles can create areas of limited blood flow within the muscle. This results in recurring pain and tension but may also lead to other regions experiencing this same discomfort.
These tight spots that occur inside your muscles limit circulation, resulting in localised recurrent pain or pressure and referral where you experience similar symptoms elsewhere on your body.
Gentle sustained pressure over these trigger points can often release these ‘tight spots’ and restore normal blood flow to the region and reduce local and referred pain.
What causes muscle knots?
It’s normal for any tissue to experience an inflammatory response when under prolonged strain. Someone could be strong enough but vulnerable to injury if they don’t know how to use their body correctly, so it helps to think of these knots as the products of sustained tension and improper posture.
It can take years or even decades before such chronic patterns lead to pain and/or disorder, which is why we should all be taking care every day by practising good body awareness.
It’s essential to make sure we’re getting our daily dose of exercise and aiming to reduce other stressors to encourage tension release.
Knots often represent the body’s attempt to deal with sustained load or tension in an area where this load is unable to dissipate throughout the body unit system as a whole.
Sustained improper postures can also overload myofascial tissues and create these tight spots for the same reason.
How to get rid of muscle knots?
Getting up out of your chair and taking a walk can help reduce the incidence of muscle knots. All that is required is increased circulation through those tissues, which can be achieved by regular active breaks from sitting to move around, walking for as little as 10 minutes every day, and regular stretching and movement whilst working.
Stretching of the ‘tight’ muscle can also help to alleviate this problem, along with movement. However, repetitive motion – particularly in the context of a body with restrictions and limitations in other areas often sets up these tight ‘trigger points’ in the first place.
Osteopathy vs Massage for muscle knots
Massage is beneficial for knots and can help reduce these tight points or ‘knots’. The use of heat during massage may also increase blood flow by increasing blood vessel dilation, which helps remove lactic acid from sore muscles. Breaking down these knots will relieve pain and promote healing in sensitive areas of the body..
The techniques Osteopaths use, such as trigger point therapy, myofascial release, and dry needling, are all ways to deal with the symptoms of these knots. However, this doesn’t address what is causing the knots, which can lead to chronic pain or injury if not dealt with.
Osteopathy is a holistic method in which the entire body must be assessed to determine what may have caused the issue in the first place. This can often link back to nutrition, sleep quality, exercise and activity levels, and bodily restrictions.
Osteopathy for knots in muscles
Osteopaths are trained in the diagnosis and rehabilitation of musculoskeletal conditions. They complete extensive university training so they can restore movement, which helps you feel healthy and vital again..
Osteopaths will take a unique approach in treatment by first assessing your functional movement and then using soft tissue techniques on restricted regions of the body. This is then followed up with active tri-planar stretches to rehabilitate your injury.
Final Thoughts
- ‘Muscle knots’ are very common, and osteopathy is an excellent way to help alleviate these symptoms, avoid injury caused by repetitive strain, and promote a healthy movement.
- Osteopaths aim to improve functional movement, flexibility and strength. Osteopathy can help people of all ages with various conditions, including back pain, neck pain, muscle tightness, stress-related tension headaches, and sports injuries.
- Osteopaths have a wide variety of techniques to help reduce these issues while taking a holistic approach to whole-body health.
If you want to get your muscles in working order, Osteopathy could be the answer you’ve been looking for.
At Balance Osteopathy, we believe restoring movement renews your feeling of health and vitality at any age. We are located in Albert Rd Melbourne 3004, near St Kilda Road, and service Melbourne, South Melbourne, Albert Park, Middle Park, Prahran and Windsor.
Contact us today to learn more about our holistic approach for muscle knots.
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