Ever experienced a feeling of tightness or a lack of smooth movement in your muscles? That sticky sensation is more than just a fleeting discomfort — it could be a sign of muscle adhesions, dehydration, or the formation of scar tissue. Understanding why your muscles feel sticky can help you identify what’s going on in your body and what steps to take to restore mobility. In this blog, we’ll break down the science behind sticky muscles, why they limit your range of motion, and how to fix them!
What is Fascia?
Before we can talk about what causes these sticky feelings, it’s important we know what is getting stuck! Fascia is an incredibly important part of the body that doesn’t get enough credit. It’s a layer of connective tissue that surrounds every muscle, organ, and nerve fiber. Fascia doesn’t just surround the outsides of your muscles, but also smaller clusters of fibers that create the bigger muscle. It’s basically woven through the entire body!
What Are Muscle Adhesions?
Muscle adhesions are caused by a build up of collagen that fuse to surrounding tissue fibers. These form between muscles and surrounding structures, like fascia creating that sticky feeling. Adhesions can develop when muscle fibers, connective tissue, or fascia stick together due to trauma, overuse and repetitive motion, or poor posture. They prevent the muscles from sliding and gliding smoothly.
What Is Scar Tissue?
Scar tissue is a natural part of the healing process after surgery or injury. This dense fibrous form of tissue can limit range of motion. While scar tissue is necessary for healing, it doesn’t always have the same flexibility or function as the original tissue. This rigidity can contribute to the “sticky” feeling, as scar tissue doesn’t stretch or move as easily as healthy muscle tissue.
Limited Range of Motion
Muscle adhesions and scar tissue aren’t the only reasons stickiness happens. We can often get that sticky feeling from limited range of motion due to bad habits. This can be anything like poor standing or seated. These habits that we reinforce throughout our day can’t be fixed by an hour’s worth of yoga… Think about it, 9 hours of poor seated posture at a desk can’t be undone in about 45 mins of stretching. You need more!
How Sticky Muscles Impact Your Body
When muscles become sticky due to adhesions or scar tissue, they lose their ability to move smoothly. This can directly affect your range of motion, making everyday movements like bending, or even walking feel restricted.
Sticky muscles also interfere with proper muscle function. Instead of working together as a coordinated smooth unit, muscles may get “stuck” in a shortened position. This not only limits your flexibility but can also lead to compensations in other areas of the body.
Compounding Impact of Compensations
The body works like a well-oiled machine, where every part needs to work well together. When one muscle becomes tight or restricted, it can trigger a another muscle to pick up the slack. This is known as “compensation.” These compensations create inefficient movement and often go unnoticed. How? Our bodies will overcompensate in other areas to get the range of motion we want. Sometimes this accumulates over time without us even noticing.
A great example of this would be a BJJ athlete trying to do rubber guard. It takes a lot of mobility in the hips to achieve this hold properly. Often BJJ athletes will lack the proper mobility to make this happen and begin overcompensating in other areas. Unfortunately what we’ve seen in office is they end up with a hurt knee.
How To Fix It
Luckily, there are effective ways to release sticky muscles and restore movement on your own. Here are some common methods you can incorporate into your routine:
Foam rolling is a popular and accessible technique for releasing tight muscles. The pressure from the foam roller helps to loosen up adhesions and increase blood flow to the area. By rolling slowly over the affected muscle, you can trigger the body’s natural healing response and break down fascial restrictions.
Muscle scraping, also known as the Instrument Assisted Soft Tissue Mobilization (IASTM), involves using specialized tools to apply controlled pressure over tight muscle areas. The scraping motion helps to break down scar tissue, increase circulation, and promote healing by stimulating the body’s tissue repair mechanisms. This technique is often used by physical therapists and massage therapists but can also be practiced at home with the right tools.
Learn More About Muscle Scraping
Primers are targeted combinations of exercises that improve your mobility as a whole. They’re the perfect way to warm up or cool down or just practice daily good health habits to keep you moving.
Muscle flossing is a technique that uses elastic bands to apply tension to a muscle while you move it through a range of motion. The idea is to create a “compression” effect on the fascia, allowing it to slide more easily over the muscles and improving overall tissue mobility. It’s a great tool for releasing stuck areas and improving flexibility.
The fascia itself needs a certain amount of hydration. It’s important you’re paying attention and making sure you’re getting enough water. We know there are lots of fancy supplements and salts to help keep you hydrated, but if you aren’t drinking enough it will impact the stickiness you’re feeling.
When to Seek Help
Not everything can and should be done on your own. It’s really helpful to see someone like us at Mobility-Doc. Focusing on manual therapy and other hands-on techniques will help set you on the right path. For example a frozen shoulder is usually something that needs help from a professional. If you have any hesitations it’s always important to speak to a trusted professional that can tailor exercises and mobility work to your specific needs!
Why Are My Muscles Sticky?
Sticky muscles, whether caused by adhesions or scar tissue can significantly impact your range of motion and overall mobility. While the feeling of tightness may seem like a minor annoyance, it can lead to more serious issues if left unchecked. Fortunately, with the right myofascial release techniques like foam rolling, muscle scraping, etc., you can break up the stickiness. Regularly incorporating these techniques into your routine plus proper hydration can help restore your range of motion, prevent further compensations, and keep your muscles functioning at their best.
If you’re experiencing persistent tightness or discomfort, consider consulting a professional to ensure you’re using the right techniques for your specific needs. Your muscles will thank you!
Looking to Reduce The Stick?
Try any of our MDRx Programs. These programs are body region or sport specific. Using the Mobility-Doc Method Primer you’re sure to see results!
Move better on a holistic level – you’ll reduce friction in your body so you can never stop doing what you love!
Get The Tools You Need!
There are so many choices out there when it comes to tools to use. Since we use them everyday, we did the hard work for you! Check out our list of favorite tools that we use in office.
The Sidekick link is an affiliate link but the others are just because we love them! We thank you for supporting us but if you prefer not to, thats OK too! No matter what we think they’re awesome.
