Let's take a minute and pay tribute to our powerful back muscles for protecting and assisting us in daily life chores. People often overestimate their back muscle power and apply a continuous burden on it than it can handle.
Even a machine can break down with a continuous workload, so we’re just ordinary human beings, aren’t we?
Our back muscles need proper care, if not, they can get stiff and tight – resulting in back pain and injuries.
Let’s deep dive into our back muscles and figure out how can stiff and tight muscles result in back pain and what mistakes can lead to stiff and tense back muscles.
- Tight Back Muscles Resulting In Back Pain
- 7 Reasons Why Your Muscles are Stiff and Tight
- Overexercise
- Sedentary Lifestyle
- Aging
- Dehydration
- Degeneration in Spinal Discs
- Inappropriate Sitting Posture
- An Underlying Myopathy
- 3 Relief Tips For Back Muscle Tightness
- Supmogo Recovery Flex System Belt
- Adequate Rest
- Ice and Heat Therapy
Tight Back Muscles Resulting In Back Pain
Imagine you have a flexible rubber band in your hand and you start pulling it outwards. The rubber band will stretch to the last of its stretchability. But after that, it’ll tear.
The same happens to your back muscles; when you apply too much force like overexercising or overbending, they can result in back pain. Moreover, if you keep on thrusting them, they’ll eventually tear.
Having tightened muscles primarily results in back pain or muscle tear and leads to several other health concerns, such as chronic tight back muscles if not treated timely.
7 Reasons Why Your Muscles are Stiff and Tight
Now that we’ve discussed how can stiff and tight muscles result in back pain, let’s look into the primary ways why your muscles are tightened and stiff. Take a look below to learn more.
Overexercise
You might have noticed that your muscles get stiff and tightened whenever you go to the gym for the first time in a while, that tightened feeling lasts for days!
You feel deadly cramps even performing everyday chores such as walking and sitting. That's because your body is not used to such overactivity or overexercise, and doing so can make your muscles work harder than they used to–leading to tightened and stiff muscles.
Sedentary Lifestyle
Your mom might scold you for sitting on the couch 24/7 and not getting yourself indulged in physical activities. What if we told you that your mom might be right and you should start moving ASAP?
Living a sedentary lifestyle can lead you on the road to muscle stiffness and weakening.
Also, sitting in the same position for extended periods can trigger back stiffness and pain by tightening muscles and worsening back pain.
Research in 2021 shows prolonged sitting or physical inactivity is linked to passive muscle stiffness. [1]
Aging
As you age, Synovial fluid (the lubricating fluid inside your joints to support healthy cushion movement) decreases, and your muscle starts to tender. Moreover, your cartilage also starts getting thinner–making all your movements tough and muscles less resistant to flexibility.
According to 2020 research, aging is associated with increased muscle stiffness because the muscles become more rigid.
Dehydration
Our body is 55-60% water, requiring constant hydration to maintain superlative health. Hydration assists in all bodily functions, such as keeping joints lubricated, hydrating discs between the vertebrae, and preventing muscles from stiffening and tightening.
If proper hydration is not provided, muscles can get stiffened and tightened, leading to muscle tension, cramping, and back pain. A study in 2006 suggests that dehydration negatively affects muscle performance by initiating stiffness and swelling. [2]
Degeneration in Spinal Discs
Spinal discs are shock absorbers of your back. Sometimes, due to injury, age-related problems, or an inactive lifestyle, your natural shock absorbers get disturbed and start degenerating. This degeneration can cause muscle stiffness and muscle tightness in the back.
Inappropriate Sitting Posture
Sitting in an improper posture is the worst thing you can do to your back. You may have asked yourself why my back feels tight after finishing the prolonged desk job. It’s because you’ve been sitting in the wrong posture.
Many research, surveys, and observational studies prove that improper posture can lead to muscle stiffness, tension, and tightening.
A 2021 research backs up the fact that prolonged sitting with slumped posture can invite the risk of LBP, muscle stiffness, fatigue, and tightness. [3]
An Underlying Myopathy
When no reason pops up why your muscles are tightened or stiffed, it’s best if you get yourself checked by an orthopedic specialist or chiropractor. There are chances that you may have some underlying myopathy (a disease that affects skeletal muscles).
3 Relief Tips For Back Muscle Tightness
Don’t worry, fellas; all these tight muscles aren’t going to stay with you forever. We have some ways out for you looking for ways how to fix a stiff back or tightened muscles. The listed relief tips will make you healthy and active again!
Adequate Rest
Rest is the number one approach to relieving tightened muscles and as a stiff back treatment. From your granny’s instructions to mama’s, followed by you–rest is significant to beat muscle tightness.
However, rest doesn’t mean you don’t move from bed for the next two days. Too much rest can worsen your muscle condition, so it’s mandatory to keep a check on your rest duration.
Ice and Heat Therapy
A combination of heat and ice therapy can be your friend in this time of pain. You can apply ice to your stiff muscles and prevent inflammation by decreasing the blood flow. After some time, you can use heat therapy to circulate healthy blood flow and loosen the tightened muscles.
Supmogo Recovery Flex System Belt
The SUPMOGO Recovery Flex System Belt is an excellent product for anyone striving to soothe their back muscles. This belt has Advanced Targeting Technology that naturally generates heat naturally to soften and relieve tight muscles. Through direct mucle contact, it contracts the muscles promoting blood circulation and prevents lactic acid accumulation in muscles. It is a non-irritant, non-odor, anti-bacterial, and antiviral, and provides a hassle-free pain relief experience to everyone in pain.
You Can Read - 10 Huge Benefits Of Using The Supmogo Recovery Flex System Belt
The Bottom Line!
Muscle tightness and stiffness is the sensation when you feel cramps and tightness even on your slightest body movement—for instance, being unable to carry groceries from the store or unable to reach the top kitchen shelves due to muscle pain.
Muscle tightness can initiate from as basic things as a bad posture and even indicate something as complicated as an underlying myopathy. However, there are ways to beat it, such as ice or heat therapy, adequate rest, and best of all, SUPMOGO!
This EMS technology-supported belt will accompany and support you while you rest or perform other day-to-day activities.
1. Boukabache, A., Preece, S. J., & Brookes, N. (2021). Prolonged sitting and physical inactivity are associated with limited hip extension: a cross-sectional study. Musculoskeletal Science and Practice, 51, 102282.
2. Cleary, M. A., Sitler, M. R., & Kendrick, Z. V. (2006). Dehydration and symptoms of delayed-onset muscle soreness in normothermic men. Journal of athletic training, 41(1), 36.
3. Jung, K. S., Jung, J. H., In, T. S., & Cho, H. Y. (2020). Effects of Prolonged Sitting with Slumped Posture on Trunk Muscular Fatigue in Adolescents with and without Chronic Lower Back Pain. Medicina, 57(1), 3.