Muscle Stiffness

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[UPDATED APRIL 2023]

Introduction

Muscle stiffness is a symptom seen when muscles cannot move quickly without accompanying pain and/or spasm. Sufferers have to move slowly. They quickly work out that after the muscle has not been used for some time, eg on rising from sleep, or from having sat in one position for some time their first movement has to be particularly slow, gentle and tentative. Moving too quickly brings about acute pain and possibly spasm.

Usually it's the back, neck and proximal muscles of the shoulder and hips which are affected. I think that the reason for this arises from the fact that evolution never meant human beings to walk on two legs. We have inherited the muscle structure of creatures walking around on four legs. This means that these muscles are working at a huge mechanical disadvantage and therefore great strains are placed on them which evolution never really intended. Happily they have developed sufficiently well to get us past child bearing which is all that evolution cares about. So it is no surprise that stiff muscles tend to be associated with old age.

John McLaren Howard also comments that quite a few muscle stiffness sufferers seem to escape the tendency to spasm and rarely report cramp. This group seem to have high intracellular calcium in the presence of adequate magnesium. Those who suffer spasm and cramp when trying to free up muscle stiffness often have low magnesium and/or poor thiamine (B1) status.

Muscle stiffness is surprisingly common - most people just adapt if the symptoms are not too severe. However, even gentle massage will make enough difference for them to realise that there is a problem. Heavy massage generally makes it worse! Muscle spasm can occur in people who have no signs at all of general or even specific muscle stiffness. So the first question to ask is:

Possible Mechanisms

What are the possible mechanisms that bring about muscle stiffness and spasm? The answer is I don't really know, but thanks to John McLaren Howard from Acumen I now have some ideas which seem to have accord very nicely with the clinical practice and bio-chemical findings.

  1. For muscles to relax they require magnesium and for muscles to contract they require calcium. Any imbalance of this, ie too much calcium or too little magnesium very much increases the tendency to spasm and contraction. Modern diets are low in magnesium and high in calcium and this will increase the tendency to spasm. See Magnesium - treating a deficiency.
  2. Other dietary indiscretions will also raise intercellular calcium levels. Calcium is held inside cells via a binding protein and this is stimulated by cyclic AMP and insulin. The two dietary problems which induce these enzymes are caffeine and carbohydrates respectively. Therefore a Western diet will tend to predispose towards muscle stiffness.
  3. Rheumatic patches may well present with the symptom of stiff muscles.
  4. We have the issue of Allergic muscles.
  5. Once a person has developed a tendency to muscle spasm and pain, we then get a learned response. The brain anticipates that the muscle will go into spasm if moved too quickly and therefore all movements are generally slowed down to prevent this from happening. It may well be that therapies known to be effective for stiff muscles such as Pilates, Bowen technique, massage and other such manipulations are re-educating the brain into realising that it is now "safe" to move freely. However they will be much more effective if the underlying physical causes are also addressed.
  6. There is clearly a neuro-psychological element. The brain is also responsible for muscle tone and neurological problems such as Parkinson's disease will result in muscle stiffness or even spasticity. Psychological stress will also tend to increase muscle tension and worsen an underlying tendency. Diazepam is one of the most useful muscle relaxants. Also see Fibromyalgia.
  7. Exercise - the right type may well be a factor. This is a guess but please put it to the test- see Exercise.

What to do about stiff muscles?

Physical treatments for stiff muscles

John McLaren Howard again comes to the rescue here with a fascinating idea which makes interesting links between the physical and the biochemical body! The idea here is that if a muscle is gently squashed (massaged) it responds with an "equal and opposite" pressure. Because massage does not involve active contraction of the muscle, calcium is not involved. But when the muscle relaxes, magnesium is involved, so magnesium floods into the cell and pushes calcium out. Effectively gentle massage pumps magnesium into cells and calcium out. Perhaps this is why one feels gorgeously relaxed after gentle massage?

However the massage cannot be done by self because the initiation of that would involve calcium fluxing into cells. It has to be done by another person, (or perhaps machine?). Furthermore it has to be done very gently - harsher massage would involve calcium fluxing in again and be counter-productive.

People with muscle stiffness can benefit greatly from moving all joints through their full range of movement before weight bearing (ie before even getting out of bed). This should be done slowly and gently and there must not be any undue stretching at the end of each movement as this will initiate a calcium-into-cells action. What one is doing is showing the muscle groups what is expected of them without invoking additional contraction - ie without encouraging calcium input into muscle cells.

Best results are achieved using Minerals and vitamins in creams.

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