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Muscle Tightness Comes from Muscle Weakness

Muscle Tightness Comes from Muscle Weakness

March 19, 2010 5 Comments

To a large extent muscle tightness comes from muscle weakness. Muscles become tight to protect the body from injury. When the body identifies a weakness or instability in and around a joint the body will tighten up to prevent injury.

This raises the following question. Should you stretch went you’re tight or should you strengthen the body? Most people think you should stretch a muscle if it is tight, but why is a muscle tight in the first place? Stretching it will make it temporarily more flexible but now you have flexibility without strength or stability. Moving into positions that you have no strength in doesn’t sound like a good idea but that is exactly what most people do.

The main reason why people lose flexibility when they get older is because they are getting weaker.  The weakness is what is making them tighten up. I would rather start someone out in a strength training program to increase their flexibility as opposed to a stretching program.  I have seen it first hand; as soon as someone gets stronger they move better, have more balance and are definitely more flexible.

When you’re performing strength training movements you’re increasing your flexibility at the same time as building strength.  For example, if you’re doing an arm curl (bicep curl), you are contracting and shortening your biceps but at the same time you are lengthening the antagonistic muscle of your triceps or there would be no movement. When curling a weight you’re making your biceps stronger while making your triceps more flexible.  If you just stretch your triceps to make them more flexible without the strong biceps that are suppose to come along with the increase in flexibility you could be risking an elbow injury by allowing your arm to flex into a position of instability.

What I want you to take away from this article is flexibility without stability is dangerous. Any position you put your body into should be strong and stable. If you are tight, try to figure out where you are weak and strengthen that area. In addition, there are also safe ways to stretch like active stretching which is actually strength training. Check out this video I did on Safe Stretching.

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Best – Mike Cola

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About Mike Cola

Mike Cola has well over 30,000 hours of hands-on personal training experience. He started his own personal training studio in1989, Mike Cola Fitness, which is located in New York. Mike has advanced certifications from the American College of Sports Medicine and other National certifying bodies. In addition, Mike is a Muscle Activation Techniques Specialist and has a BA with studies in exercise physiology, nutrition and biomechanics. Mike started Fitness Contrarian, a health and fitness web site, in 2009.
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5 Responses to “Muscle Tightness Comes from Muscle Weakness”

  1. Kathy July 9, 2010 at 2:38 am

    Mike,

    Just wanted to let you know that I love your blog and videos. Reading this article today made me finally understand what is going on with my body. I hope you plan to keep up the videos on active stretching and strengthening. I have been plagued by left side pain from my hip downward (especially hamstring)for the last three years. For a long while I tried passive stretching but gave it up because it seemed to be doing more harm than good.

    My goal is to just get stronger and more flexible. I appreciate your approach of not over-doing it–which in the end only serves to discourage rather than encourage the exercise.

    I am 54, probably 5 lbs overweight, and yes, I have the damnable pooch. Guess I need to get started on the situps.

    Keep up the great work!

    Kathy

  2. Mike Cola July 9, 2010 at 7:06 am

    Thanks for the comments Kathy. I plan on releasing more videos this summer. Let me know what topics you would like me to discuss.

    Best- Mike

  3. Westy August 25, 2010 at 2:56 am

    This does not make any sense to me. If this is true then tell me why most (if not all) of my muscles are really tight when I’ve been strength training for over 10 years. I am definitely not weak by any means, for example I can squat over 200 lbs, bench about 150 lbs, and curl just over 100 lbs and I am female. As a matter-of-fact my doc has referred me to physical therapy because right now my lower back & hamstrings are so tight that they are causing me problems and pain. So yeah, unless I’m misunderstanding this, I’m not buying it unless you can clarify?

  4. Mike Cola August 25, 2010 at 12:15 pm

    Its sounds like you are strong but muscles have different receptors in them that constantly communicate with your central nerves system regulating how a muscle contracts and relaxes.

    When a muscle contracts some of the receptors like muscle spindles can go under slack. When muscle spindles have slack in them this will limit its ability to communicate with your central nervice system. You might be strong in 95% of your range of motion but when you fully try to shorten or contract a muscle your body might be sensing some weakness or instability and tightening up.

    For example, let’s use the 100 pound curl. When you curl up the weight you are contracting your biceps so your muscle receptors in your biceps are sending a signal to your central nervice system to inhibit or relax your triceps so you can curl the weight. But if you are close to the end range of your concentric biceps curl (the exact point where your triceps could be fully stretched) and your biceps sense some weakness or instability, it will send a signal to tighten up your triceps.

    What you can do to increase your flexibility is active stretching and/or isometrics. When you fully contract a muscle and hold it, it gives your muscle receptors more time to communicate with your brain (central nervice system) and relax the antagonist muscle. What you are doing by stretching this way is making the muscle stronger at the end point of your range of motion when the antagonist muscle is under maximum stretch.

    I hope this explanation helps. I did a video that discusses a little bit about this that you might want to check out. – http://www.fitnesscontrarian.com/safe-stretching/

    Best – Mike

  5. Los Angeles Cancer Physical Therapy November 17, 2010 at 4:28 pm

    That picture at the top is crazy! I would love to be that flexible!

    Stretching is so important! Thanks for the article.

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