for once, i was on the receiving end of a back rub from one of my friends (i’m usually the massager, not the massagee), during which he asked me “do you have scoliosis?” “uh. no. i don’t. why?” “your back must be really knotted up, then.”
this is, incidentally, not the first time someone has told me this about my back. i’m under no more stress than the average college freshman (actually, i think i’ve got less stress than normal). but apparently i have these great knots in my back . . . i can’t feel them, but they’re there, so i’m told. upon making this observation, i also had a friend attempt to massage them out but that just resulted in A LOT of pain for me.
i realize there are possible variables (such as do i sleep in an odd position on an unsuportive mattress or something) that i’m not listing here. however, it’s not so much me that i’m curious about.
where do these muscular knots come from? are they associated with the muscles (I would presume they are, but could be wrong)? how do they form? what do they look like? i’m not imagining a giant square knot fashioned from my latissimus dorsi or anything . . . but yeah. can anyone give me any information? maybe, at least, a more anatomically correct term for “knots,” as the Merck Family Medical Dictionary isn’t picking up on that phrasology.
I enjoy massage, but have noticed masseuses tend to say wierd things sometimes. I’ve been tol I have those mysterious knots also. I just don’t believe it. One told me she was releasing some kind of pent up energy in my nervous system, but I knew she was only twanging a nerve near my buttock. I wouldn’t put too much stock in the stuff they say and simply enjoy the massage.
And what kind of college student can afford massages?
I enjoy massage, but have noticed masseuses tend to say wierd things sometimes. I’ve been tol I have those mysterious knots also. I just don’t believe it. One told me she was releasing some kind of pent up energy in my nervous system, but I knew she was only twanging a nerve near my buttock. I wouldn’t put too much stock in the stuff they say and simply enjoy the massage.
And what kind of college student can afford massages? Go study.
i didn’t pay for a massage (in fact, i can’t afford them), it was a friend that offered. of course, that’s a flimsy source for my question. at this point, i guess i’m just wondering of the merit of “knots” in one’s back. do they even exist?
I had a huge arguement with an ex-GF (emphasis on EX), after she’d been on a 3-day hike. She’d be saying ‘feel these knots in my back’, and I’d say ‘yeah, there’s lumps there, but they can’t be knots’…“SHUT UP, they’re KNOTS, what do you know?”…etc.
A knot involves something being tied. Couldn’t happen to flesh without some major surgery. I’d love to hear the explanation for this phenomonon.
Actually, according to the dictionary, knot is indeed the correct term for the lumps or swelling found in muscles. The word itself seems to imply more of a sense of closeness, or a thick grouping rather than the actual provess of tying a knot.
According to this site muscle knots are more accurately referred to as myofascial trigger points. It also gives a brief overview of what may cause the knots, although it says that doctors really don’t know all the causes.
Of the 9 definitions of knot in the American Heritage, only 2 involve something being tied (definitions 1, 2), although two (3 and 6) would have come about through metaphor with those two.
Two (7 and 8) are lumps, bumps, and growths.
Two (4 and 5) could be metaphorical outgrowths from either of those.