One of the most common issues seen in the clinic are complaints of stiffness and tightness. My younger athletes complain of muscle tightness after multiple practices/games in a week. My older patients complain of morning joint stiffness and ache in their neck, low back, or hips. Why are these people getting tight to begin with?

The body does a great job taking care of itself, attempting to reduce stressors as possible. With the musculoskeletal system, the body is driven on the purpose of providing stability. Muscles, tendons, and ligaments will tighten to stabilize a joint, especially when the body moves into what it views as an unstable position. An unstable position can be from a previous injury, fatigue or stress from repetitive motions, or lack of full motion at a joint.

1) Prior Injury

An ankle sprain or muscle pull can have long term effects, on both the tissue affected or up/down the chain. A joint sprain, if not healed or rehabbed well, leads to increase in joint stiffness. If the nervous system can not or does not feel safe going through that motion, that joint will continue to feel stiff, long after it has “healed”. Muscular stability is essential after a joint sprain, since these ligaments are now lax and not as tight as before. Therefore, the muscles will tighten up to protect that joint, providing the sensation of stiffness long term.

If you take the example of an ankle sprain, not only can the ankle tighten up, but also the mid foot or knee, i.e the joints above and below the sprain. These joints work in unison with every step. The ankle may tighten up from the sprain, but if the ankle now can’t properly roll in, the knee wont extend and rotate as well it should. Over time, since this knee is not extending as much as used to, this becomes the new normal, and now you have both ankle and knee stiffness.

2) Repetitive Motion

Athletes in any sport become proficient at the movements they do in that sport. Runners take thousands of steps a day. Baseball players take hundreds of swings and throws a week. As athletes become more efficient at these movements, they become less efficient at movements they don’t do. This leads to muscular and joint tightness in any activities outside their sport. Working with a strength and conditioning coach will keep athletes well rounded, to exposing their body to forces they do not get through their practices or seasons.

3) Consistent Lack of Full Range of Motion

Like athletes who repeatedly perform the same motions, sedentary people who do not perform full range of motion will lose their ability to perform it. This is a simple use it or lose it scenario. If patients do not perform a motion, their muscles, joints, ligaments stiffen up, as the central nervous system does not see a reason to keep this motion. Most people do not perform any rotational motion throughout their daily activities, often losing this motion first. Once a joint becomes stiff, the stiffening process accelerates at a quicker rate. This is why people with joint arthritis feel stiff in the morning, as they haven’t moved in their sleep. As years progress, joint become arthritic, muscles become atrophied (smaller and weaker), leading to continued stiffness, and possible joint surgery.

4) Stretching

The previous article talked about the effects of stretching on muscle spindles. If you recall, passive stretching makes the muscles relax, but therefore inhibiting their ability to contract as well as before. Because the muscles can not contract as well, this can affect the adjacent muscles, overloading them, and tightening them up due to that increased load.

Not only are the muscles nearby affected by stretching, but the muscle stretched is also affected. Because that muscle can now not generate as much force, it not can not provide as much stability to it’s nearby joint. To compensate, the body increases the resting muscular tone, or resting “tightness” to aid in that stability. In most people, this leads to more stretching, due to that increased tightness. This momentarily improves that tightness, but nothing to fix why it’s tight to begin with, and continues to make that tightness worse long term

These are just a few reasons for why people feel tight, as it would be impossible to cover all of them. A good starting place for most people is, if you feel tight, stop stretching! The tightness is the outcome of another issue, so if the other issue is not fixed, the stretching will not help the problem, and make the problem worse. If you want to understand why YOU feel tight, a full assessment is critical. This assessment must ask about previous injuries, current exercise habits, and assessment of every tissue that influences your tightness. Only then can you understand and fix your tightness for good.