I know that many of you ran the Rock&Roll Marathon yesterday so I will use the hamstring muscle because that area might be causing you some pain. I was reading through a forum post on the Anatomy Trains website and received a little clarification on the idea of muscle "tightness". Thomas Myers differentiates between a "locked long" muscle and a "locked short" muscle. It should be known that both of these distinctions are abnormal lengths for a muscle tissue and put it at greater risk for injury.
When I say injury, I mean the sore knee and shin that you might feel a couple days out of a MAJOR stress to the human body. It is very rare, unless you were in the Lord of The Rings, that humans are permitted to move at a constant pace for long periods of time. Just realize that running for that long will bring out some dysfunction you have whether it originate at the ankle, knee, hip, back, or neck.
I am not saying that running is the devil, but most of us are not built to run long distance. Furthermore, most of of run to supplement our sedentary lifestyles. Running a long distance to stay active AFTER we have sat on our butts all day long is not normal. Sitting for long periods of time is not normal. I say normal in that the body was not built to handle the sedentary stress we put on it. I believe that we try to treat an extreme sedentary lifestyle with an extreme active lifestyle. It sounds like a lot of pain to me.
Back to the muscle stuff. The hamstring issue I posted last time is not as simple as improving glute function. If fact, during one's journey to find their ass function again, they will feel discomfort in their hamstring. The hamstring is the guy that wants to take over for everything. The hamstring would be called "locked long". It is in a constant stretched and toned state.
muscle tonus ,n the steady reflex contraction that resides in the muscles concerned in maintaining erect posture. Tonus has its basis in the positional interactions of the muscle and its accompanying nerve structure
Think of a muscle that rests in an over toned (hypertonic) state as being "tense". This is why your hamstring might feel tight to stretch. It does not mean that it is short and tight, but rather it exists in a hypertonic state. Stretching a "locked long" muslce is not the best idea. This is where foam rolling and massage comes in. In simple terms, (I have very little knowledge of massage techniques) releasing a "locked" muscle will make more sense. Instead of stretching, most of us need some form of mobilizing tissues and joints. I am sure that anybody who has ever received a massage on their neck region feels 100% better after that session. Those muscles where probably locked in position because our shoulders and back were rounded all day.
Hypertonic muscles can also be weak. Think of muscle fibers as boards on a wood floor. They also have little ratchets that come off the boards to catch the board around it. These boards pull together to create a muscle contraction. If these muscles are either in a "locked long" or "locked short" state, they are not at an optimal length to create a healthy muscle contraction. Not having a healthy muscle contraction will decrease the muscle's strength and chance to gain hypertrophy. Ah yes, hypertrophy. You may not know it, but hypertrophy (growth of muscle) is what EVERYBODY is striving for when they go to the gym. Whether you lift weights to "tone" a muscle, or do "cardio" to shed fat that lies on top of the muscle, increased hypertrophy of a muscle is the scientific term of "looking good".
Lets take a real world example. A common "locked long" muscle is the hamstring. If anybody was watching the New York Yankees playoff games this year, think of Mark Teixeira's hamstring strain. Professional sports teams have access to the best facilities and medical professionals. I am positive that any sort of pain and he would go see the athletic trainer or team doctor. So how did his hamstring strain after all of this pre-game stretching and medical treatment? Well it might have happened because his muscle returned to that locked state after sitting in the dugout. We also know that some positions in baseball do not move very far to field the ball. It was only when he suddenly burst into hip extension (sprint) that his locked hamstring tore apart. Our tissues are extremely durable. Mark Teixeira did not just suddenly develop Usain Bolt type acceleration. That one hip extension movement was certainly preceded by many other hip extension movements just that day. He probably simply placed too much stress on a hypertonic muscle.
Start to think about these topics when you are training. Does something feel overly stretched or tight? Is your performance hindered from a "locked" muscle tissue? There is only one way to fix faulty patterns of movement, and that is by testing those patterns for dysfunctions. Remember, we are trying to find the origin of the problem, not just where the pain is!
Keep applying your knowledge and lets add some intelligence to our monotonous gym time!
Many thanks to Patrick Ward for helping me understand this stuff. Go check out his blog!
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