Austin, I was curious if you could shed some light on the concept of “muscle knots”. For lack of a better descriptor, when I feel my girlfriends back, it feels like she had hard portions of inflamed muscle under her shoulder blades. Similar to the feeling of a hot dog or thick gummy worms. When I press on them, she notices a slight amount of pain. I know the pain concept is very nuanced, but just curious what can be learned about “knots”. The massages we give each other are done purely to help relax as we know massages don’t actually do much of anything.
Eric,
Thanks for this.
To be clear, there are no identifiable muscle knots via any sort of advanced imaging or testing, which suggests they do not exist. Further, clinicians cannot reliably determine where a “knot” is and I assume they’ll fight to the death using IASTM instruments to defend their position.
As far as having an area that is tender to palpation, it could be from a number of things pertaining to muscular fatigue, stress, priming, etc. but none are related to muscle “knots.”
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Jordan and Austin, as always, thanks for the great response! Those are some of the most interesting articles I have read in a while. Glad to have something backing me up when I tell my girlfriend she isn’t getting a massage later 