Muscle knots and tightness

T

thornbreaker

New member
I am currently doing S&S at 30kg 2x a week and DFW 16kg 2x week. DFW I started with single bell since I couldn't do both at same time, but after about 6 weeks I can do doubles. My goal is GPP, with 3 young kids, I'll be happy to get to Simple and maintain it for life, and get to either 20kg or 24kg DFW then try other programs.

My general issue is that I often get muscle knots, usually in neck (scalenes), traps, upper back areas, e.g. I have a sedetary job, I did goto chiro for 2 months which helped. Professional message really helps if I get it regularly but its hard to get appointments. If its not too bad I'll use a message ball to get it out myself, otherwise I end up begging my wife for deep tissue message.

For warmup I start S&S with goblet squat, bridges and sometimes halos. DFW I don't have a good warm up, I'll do few static stretches of the arm. I have some relief by regularly doing Tom Merreck's 15 mobility routine before going to bed.

Is this part of getting strong or am I mising something? What stretch/mobility routines do you folks use? Thank you in advance.
 
@tythomasjr I used to do yoga as part of P90x3 years ago, will try this out again. Any recommendation? 1 hour would be too long but 30mins I can keep up.

Yeah I've been using lacrosse ball like message balls, will try out the softer ones.

Thanks!
 
@thornbreaker Glo.com (I know the name...) offers a large library of classes and live classes for 20/month (usd). I suspect the youtube ones could be interrupted by adds; talk about a test of mindfulness.

Alternatively, many local yoga teachers are streaming their classes and accumulating libraries. A teacher I particularly like in my area offers her library and recorded classes for 40/month.
 
@thornbreaker I have and still often have similar feelings to what you describe. After years of trying to stretch and massage it away I found that overhand pull ups on a straight bar (I only had rings previously), along with pulling my shoulders down away from my ear, to constantly and consciously increase the gap between my shoulders and ears using my lats whilst walking and sitting gave me better long term pain relief than any stretch, sauna, or weird massage implement ( which all still have their important places!).
 
@riane87 Pulling shoulders down is exactly what my chiro kept emphasizing, I have to keep concious about that as well. Pull down and a little back. Good to hear it works long term.

I remember one of the counters to setting all day was to hang for 30s a few times a day, I had forgotten about it, I'll start that again as well.
 
@thornbreaker Hanging seems good but for me the shoulders down was the key. If you have 2 bells try holding them in suitcase position by your sides for time, as long as you can to stretch out those traps and really sink the shoulder in the socket and the scaps down. People have so many types of problems from sitting, hunching, anxiety and whatnot, there's no one size fits all but this was a game changer for me!
 
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