Muscle knots: causes, prevention and the best treatments

What are muscle knots

What they actually are

Muscle knots are actually a part of your muscle that has spasmed or tightened, bunching up to form the lump. This will cause:

• the whole muscle to tighten
• pressure on the blood vessels which restricts blood flow
• they will be tender and shoot pain when pressed upon, then as they worsen shoot pain without needing to be pressed upon

What they are not

Parts of muscles can suffer from scar tissue, adhesions and inflammation. However, despite what you read these issues are normally not part of a muscle knot.

The symptoms of muscle knots

As mentioned muscle knots can cause stiffness, tiredness plus a host of muscular aches and pains. One reason for such a wide range of symptoms is that muscle knots can shoot pain well away from the actual lump. Scientists have mapped much of this, as shown in the following diagrams.

How are muscle knots diagnosed

Muscle knots do not show up in any medical scans or laboratory tests (so medical doctors usually don’t find or diagnose them). They can only be found and diagnosed by a properly trained professional physically examining the muscles, looking for the tightness, lump, tenderness and shooting pain.

For more information

Your complete guide to (myofascial) trigger points

What causes muscle knots

You may read lists of things that cause muscle knots, However, the two main underlying causes are:

1. prolonged or abnormal stress on the muscles, and
2. restricted blood flow, which causes a lack of nutrients and build up of waste products in the muscles.

Example two: Emotional stress and tension

Emotional stress and tension can cause muscles around the head and neck to tighten. The muscle knots these cause are a major cause of headaches.

Example three: Muscle knots themselves cause muscle knots

As discussed above muscle knots themselves cause muscles to tighten and restrict blood flow, but these are also the major causes of muscle knots. Therefore, once you have muscle knots they create the perfect environment to keep growing and for more to develop. This is why once you have them they almost never go away on their own, and why they keep coming back after being treated. Later in this article we will show you how to overcome this to successfully get rid of them.

How to prevent muscle knots

There are a number of things you can do to help prevent muscle knots. These all involve minimising or eliminating the two main underlying causes. Let’s look at some examples.

Treat existing muscle knots

As we have seen existing muscle knots cause muscles to tighten and restrict blood flow, which cause more muscle knots to develop and the existing ones to worsen. Later in this article we will show you the best way to treat them.

Sitting at a computer

1. Set up your work station to minimise postural and other stresses. An excellent resource that shows you how to do this is our Victorian Government Worksafe guidelines
2. Take regular exercise breaks to help reduce muscle tightening and help get blood pumping though your muscles.

Other jobs and activities

1. Minimise repetitive stresses and prolonged tightening of your muscles. our Victorian Government Worksafe guidelines give specific advice for a large range of jobs and activities.
2. Take regular exercise breaks to help reduce muscle tightening and help get blood pumping though your muscles.

Emotional tension and stress

Emotional tension and stress and be a significant cause of muscle knots, especially in the head and neck muscles. As an example, during the exam period in Chiropractic College fellow students sought regular treatments. This is not our area of expertise, so if this is a concern we advise that you seek appropriate advice.

Spinal and postural abnormalities

Issues with your spine and posture are a very common cause of muscles to be abnormally tight. For more information about this and what to do please see this article

Regular muscle care

Causes of muscle knots can easily be minimised, but it is practically impossible top eliminate them altogether. Therefore it is great to do some ongoing muscle care to keep them from tightening and to keep an excellent blood flow. To do this we recommend:

1. regular exercise and stretching
2. regular massages (Later in this article we will show you the best do self massage so you can do this without the expense and inconvenience)

What is the best treatment for muscle knots

If you have had treatment for muscle knots before you will understand that:

1. there are a wide range of potential treatments
2. which ever treatment you use the muscle knots always seem to come back.

What will do here is give you your best treatment option, plus a strategy to help stop them coming back.

Why is there a wide range of potential treatments

The key to treating muscle knots is to relax the tightened muscle and increase the blood flow. There are many treatments that can do this.

Why do muscle knots keep coming back

The reason muscle knots seem to always come back is that they never really go. It is only the pain that goes, giving the illusion that the knots themselves are gone. What happens is muscle knots usually start small then slowly grow. Eventually when they get large enough so when something aggravates them and they start causing pain. Most treatments merely reduce their size and stop them hurting. As we have also seen, once you have muscle knots they cause muscle tightening and reduce blood flow, creating the ideal environment for the knots to re-develop.

An example showing that most treatments usually do not rid muscle knots

In a a trial of treaments for shoulder pain after 12 very thorough treatment sessions the pain was largely gone, but 2/3 of the muscle knots were still there. This means that whether you use a trigger point release from YouTube or a course of needle or laser treatments you will still have most of your muscle knots. Keep reading and we will show you how to overcome this.

How to treat them properly

Your basic strategy

The basic strategy to rid yourself of muscle knots is very simple. In the example above, while 2/3 of the muscle knots were still there after the 12 thorough treatment sessions, all of the knots had reduced in size and 1/3 were gone. Therefore, the way to get rid of muscle knots is to:

1. continue the treatments to continue shrinking and eliminating your muscle knots (we will show you the best self treatment that is easy to do, does not hurt, with practically no ongoing cost)
2. eliminate the things that cause muscle knots (discussed above)

Your best treatment option

In out article What is the best treatment for trigger points we discuss that the only practical solution that effectively settles muscle knots down and can be repeatedly applied is self applied vibration massage (not massage guns). For how to do this please see How to release trigger points yourself .

Further information

How to treat muscle knots yourself

For a complete description of how to treat a muscle knot yourself please see our article How to release trigger points yourself . Remember, “trigger point” is the technical name for a muscle knot.

How to treat muscle knots for various conditions

In this section we will link to resources to help you with muscle knots for various conditions. These will use the technical term “trigger points’, but you know its the same thing.
Shoulder pain
Fibromyalgia
Headaches and migraines
Tennis elbow
Back pain
Calf pain