Feeling Tight or Stiff? Here’s Some Causes You May Not Know Of

Good Afternoon!

Have you ever woken up with a tight neck?

Lower back? Legs or shoulders? These things tend to seize up from time to time — especially as we age — for no rhyme or reason.

Why does this happen?

Muscle tightness and stiffness can happen for many reasons, and no, it isn’t just because of how you slept, I promise.

Sleeping is one of many factors that can contort your muscles — and, more importantly, your bones — into positions unfavorable for living your daily life.

Other factors include stress (physical and psychological), posture, diet, your level of daily cardiovascular activity (more on that later), and how hard you train and recover.

Let’s dive into the why’s.

Why Do We Get “Tight” and “Stiff?”

Tension in our bodies is expressed in many ways.

Headaches, muscle aches, feelings of stiffness, and lack of motion freedom can all be direct results of misallocated tension.

Those bottom four cells are words that I didn’t have the time to look into for this newsletter, and because I fear I’ll lose your attention, I’ll save those for another day.

Regarding muscle stiffness, we can usually form a hierarchy for (most) people based on the current movement trends among Americans.

First, the facts:

• As of 2023 data, 70% of Americans aren’t meeting the physical activity guidelines set by the WHO and the CDC (remember those organizations some of us lost trust in during COVID? They’re not asking for much, by the way)
• 25% of Americans don’t complete any weekly physical activity outside of commuting to work (!!!)
• Nearly half of Americans surveyed in a July Poll said they are curious about weight loss prescriptions like Ozempic. Which means nearly half of Americans want an easy way out.

The bad news is that there is no easy way out of bad health, and this lack of movement will only cost us more money, to the tune of $300 billion by 2030.

The good news is that moving the needle in a positive direction doesn't take much.

I wrote ad nauseam last year about how simply moving 11 minutes per day — intensely enough to boost your heart rate and possibly sweat — can help you reach weekly exercise standards.

But, back to the topic of Tension.

This lack of movement is what is causing us to be stiff.

Have you ever seen the movie 127 Hours? Minor spoiler alert coming.

In the movie, a climber, Aron Ralston, gets wedged between two boulders in Utah and has to fight for his life.

Those boulders are, in many ways, the actual main characters. For years, they were likely wedged together improbably, with weather, erosion, and time solidifying them together through an improbable amount of tension.

Our muscles and joints work similarly.

Desk jobs, car rides, plane trips, couch-potatoing, and the sheer absence of activity we’ve been thrust into since the dawn of the 21st century have put our bodies into incredibly tightly wedged bundles of stress.

With little to no fluid moving through our lymphatic system, this stress can be the biggest driver of tight, stiff muscles and joints.

Movement, Cardio, and Lymphatics For Tight and Stiff Muscles

Remember when I said earlier that cardiovascular activity played a role in stiffness and tightness?

This might sound contrarian because anyone who runs regularly knows that tightness is almost certainly a short-term side effect of distance running (but usually not long-term).

The tightness (usually) isn’t long-term because the oscillatory (or bouncy) nature of running can help drain lymphatic fluid from areas where it compounds.

Aside from massages, which can be another temporary relief from tension and stiffness, cardio that forces you to move repetitively can actively release lymphatic fluid from “problem areas” like your neck, shoulders, thighs, and lower back, alleviating stiff joints.

Some have taken the bounciness to the extreme with trampoline cardio to completely detox lymphs.

Also, with the drastic changes in cold and warm weather we’ve been experiencing across America during the last few weeks, it’s likely that barometric pressure — or a change in the amount of water in the air — can cause joint stiffness, especially in populations with chronic illnesses.

This is something I learned when training clients of mine who had surgically repaired limbs with rods in their joints. On rainier days, their repaired joint would flare up and stiffen, making our training sessions harder.

This can also affect the everyday person, too, which is to say that sometimes (but not always), muscle stiffness and joint stiffness might be out of our control.

But fear not.

If you’re looking for more education on this topic and how to counteract these things, I crafted a four-part newsletter course this past weekend on my Substack account, High Performance Health.

I highly encourage you to go subscribe check it out if you’re interested in this topic, whether you’re someone who wants to alleviate soreness quicker or someone who deals with chronic tightness.

See you next week!