How To Get Rid of [Muscle] Knots

A mus­cle knot, also known as a trig­ger point, is basi­cally a small group of mus­cle fibers that have con­tracted in one spot amidst a much larger mus­cle bun­dle or mus­cle spin­dle.  It usu­ally occurs from chron­i­cally overus­ing a muscle.

What’s the prob­lem with knots?  Any­time there is any com­pres­sion of a mus­cle, the blood ves­sels com­press and that shuts the flow of blood.  That’s why you can’t indef­i­nitely keep lift­ing some­thing up with your arm and even­tu­ally need to relax.  Wher­ever there is a knot, the mus­cle fiber is chron­i­cally con­stricted, con­sum­ing energy and the lack of oxy­genated blood flow causes waste prod­ucts such as lac­tic acid to build up and the waste prod­ucts can­not leave since the blood flow is decreased.  This causes knots/trigger points to remain very tight and painful when massaged.

Any­way, whats the point of this?  How do we get rid of these knots?

The prob­lem with these knots is that stretch­ing may not get rid of all these knots as effec­tively as we would like.  Deep Tis­sue Mas­sage works best but most peo­ple can’t afford a mas­sage every cou­ple days, let alone every month!  Luck­ily, there is a form of self-myofascial release that you could do your­self using a foam roller that is actu­ally quite inex­pen­sive and incred­i­bly effective!

This foam roller was hands down the great­est pur­chase for my health. (Well, other than my bicy­cle, of course)

Grab this ridicu­lous foam roller that’ll last forever

You see this foam roller on the right?  This thing is absolutely ridicu­lous. It’s called the “Trig­ger Point Grid Foam Roller” and for $40-shipped, I got rid of all the knots on my entire back, quads, gluts, calves, ham­strings, IT band and even my fore­arms.  I have lit­er­ally used it every­where and I feel so incred­i­bly loose after­wards.  It’s like giv­ing your­self a mas­sage every time.  It’s painful at first, but the pain lessens with each sub­se­quent ses­sion and the areas feel so much more flexible.

Note: When I first ran the foam roller along my back for the first time, it got rid of so many knots I didn’t even know existed.  Being a reg­u­lar cyclist for over five years now, the amount of knots I had built up in my quadri­ceps were innu­mer­able and I had no idea.

The j/fit foam roller.

If you are on a tight bud­get, don’t get the cheaper foam roller.

I’ve tried this j/fit foam roller as it was only $20 instead of the $33 but it wasn’t very good, at all.  I wouldn’t be impressed with foam rollers if this was the best foam roller on the planet.  It works, but it’s absolutely noth­ing like the trig­ger point version.

Pic­tured below: One of the areas you could work on (other than your entire upper back!) is your ili­otib­ial band (IT band). Every­body needs to work out their iliotib­ial band which is this mas­sive ten­don that runs between your top of shin bone (tibia) along­side your femur, all the way to the top of your hip (ilium).  It’s super-duper tight on run­ners and cyclists and you will feel so loose afterwards!

An exam­ple of a very impor­tant exer­cise to do with the foam roller to release the IT band.

Down­load this man­ual that explains how to release the knots for every mus­cle in per­fect detail!

I found this man­ual online that explains in detail how to per­form Self Myofas­cial Release for every mus­cle and what tool to use. Most of them call for a foam roller but some of them can also be done with a ten­nis ball or a stick.

Hope that helps!

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