Snap, Crackle & Pop

Does your body make noise when you move? Such as:
--> Crunching when you roll your shoulders.
--> Knees snap and pop on stairs.
--> Back cracks when turning.

There’s no need to freak out over the sound of crunchy muscles. They are, however, a warning to proceed with caution. The noises come from hardness in the body, such as calcification in muscles and fascia or tight ligaments and tendons, where there’s supposed to be suppleness. It’s as though the soft tissues are turning to bone.

To avoid the crunching, many people stop moving. Unfortunately, this makes the situation worse. Nutrition starved muscles stay surrounded in metabolic waste, including calcium that forms into crystals. Ligaments become malnourished since they depend on movement for fresh blood flow. Tendons that stay still become tighter.

An “all or nothing” attitude toward exercise gets us in trouble. Ignoring the sound’s messages is just as damaging as being stopped by them. Here’s an example from my personal experience. My hips used to pop when extending my legs. How interesting, I thought. Will it pop again? Yes. And, again? Yes. After a few times it would start to hurt. This was because the iliopsoas tendon was snapping over the top of the hip joint. Each pop was alerting me to damage.
The answer was to extend my hip in a way that didn’t create a popping sound to stretch the muscle and tendon at the limit without pulling it off track.

The noises from your knees may be telling you that you’re wearing one side of the joint more than the other. Running up and down the stairs without awareness ingrains patterns of misuse. Slow down so you can pay careful attention to your alignment with the knee coming straight over the middle toes. Also try to lean forward a bit at your hips, especially when going down the stairs. Find the alignment to avoid the pains and pops and you’ll create less wear and tear.

Tension around the shoulders is so common that almost everyone has calcification in the tendons and muscles around their shoulder blades. The hardness can melt, however. This is one of the reasons people seek deep-tissue bodywork. Fluid movement such as small shoulder circles can also dissolve the crunchiness. Make circles forward and back and also sideways over your ribs.

When you hear the snap, crackle and pop of petrified tissues watch your alignment and use your movement to restore fluidity.

The Cure for Stubborn, Inflexible Muscles

How do you feel about the stiff muscles in your body? Are they stubborn and uncooperative? Do they get in the way of your full enjoyment of life?

Maybe the trouble isn’t in your muscles. The underlying ligaments, cartilage and discs don’t receive direct blood supply, so they depend on gentle motion to bring in nutrition and take away waste products.

Sway your spine and notice where the movement is easy and what places find it difficult or impossible to participate. Any place that can’t move is malnourished.

Give a stiff place one minute to be the center of your attention, let it determine how to sway, let it be the leader of your body. Discover how little time it takes to be rejuvenated, how willing it is to be part of you when it gets what it needs.

If you spend hours a day at a computer, or in the car, or engaged in repetitive stillness of any sort, your stiffness may simply be a plea for an internal drink of water, a taste of nutrients, a call to take out the toxins accumulated in the muscles.

Undulate—sway, wiggle, squirm—in any way that makes those inflexible places more flexible. Because the movements are small, you can do it anywhere: at your desk, in your car, even waiting in line at the grocery store. You can learn 52 undulation exercises that will unlock your spine in Relieve Stiffness and Feel Young Again with Undulation and the 4-CD audio version, Undulation Exercises. Try some out here: http://www.undulationexercise.com/undulation-view-undulations.htm.

Tight Muscles Are Not All the Same

Most of my clients (or should I say most Americans?) have tight muscles. While tightness is certainly uncomfortable and a request for attention, it’s not a useful adjective for diagnosis, because tightness is caused by different factors. Treatment for one type of tight muscle can actually make another worse. I'll explain six types of tightness so you can respond to your muscles’ complaints more effectively.

#1 – Short and overused
After a long hike or intense workout, the muscles in your legs may feel tight and sore, because they have been overused. The muscles are contracted and could benefit from gentle stretching, especially while they are warm from activity.

#2 – Long and overused, but weak
When in an unbalanced posture, some muscles will be short and contracted and others will be long for counterbalance, which creates stiffness that feels like tightness. Computer posture is a great example, as shown in the illustration. The muscles in the front of the chest are short and overused, the upper back and shoulders are overstretched and working in a compromised, weakened position. They need to be shortened and strengthened. Isometric exercise like squeezing the shoulder blades together is effective. (As a matter of fact, half the benefit of a doorway stretch is stretching the front, the other benefit is shortening the muscles in the upper back.) Follow this link for shoulder blade squeeze instructions http://gwinnettmedicalcenter.kramesonline.com/3,S,89941.

#3 – Underused and weak
If a muscle isn’t used, it will atrophy and the surrounding connective tissue and fascia gets sticky and dense. In computer posture, several of the arm muscles fall into this category. Gradually increase strength through exercise to rebuild the health of the muscle and feeling of suppleness to the fascia. Multiple muscle exercises like mini push-ups or bench press is better than single muscle exercises on a machine. Here are instructions for a wall push-up: http://www.wikihow.com/Do-a-Wall-Push-Up.

#4 – Strained
Muscles that are overused to the point of strain tighten up for protection. The first step in healing is rest. Ice, heat, or a combination can help, too. Then gradually introduce exercise and stretching. You can read more about injury treatment here: http://sportsmedicine.about.com/cs/rehab/a/rice.htm.

#5 – Trigger points
Strain can create trigger points and so can structural imbalance, poor posture, and being cold. These knots are often described as tightness. The best treatment is warming the muscle, pressing or massaging the tender points, and then stretching.

#6 – Scar tissue
Muscles and connective tissue that have been damaged, either from a sudden injury or continual microtrauma of poor alignment, repair themselves with stiff, inflexible scar tissue. Manual therapy like deep tissue and cross fiber friction massage is an effective treatment. Sometimes stretching helps, but overstretching creates even more scar tissue.

You can’t lump all tight muscles together and treat them the same way. For example, lengthening or stretching a long and overused muscle or muscles with internal scar tissue makes them even more stiff. Become aware of what underlies your internal feelings and you’ll improve your muscle health, prevent injuries, and discover new insights about yourself.

However, there are some types of exercises that are good for your muscles, ligaments, and joints at any time. You can read more about why here: http://undulationexercise.blogspot.com/2008/10/cure-for-stubborn-inflexible-muscles.html.

Also, download a free copy of 7 Undulatiosn to Relieve Office Tension and try seven exercises that relieve tight muscles in the neck, shoulders, hands, and back.