Everything I read about this is inconclusive. We have an entire industry dedicated to removing knots (massage), but know one seems to be able to say exactly what they are.
In: Biology
Its a part of a muscle that is “flexed” involuntarily. It happens for a wide variety of reasons.
They are spots and areas of your muscle which have hardened due to bad posture or inactivity (says google). [https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/321224](https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/321224)
A knot is when the muscle is stuck in the “on position.” On is when it’s contracted. Off is when it’s not.
When the muscle is put under stress it can protect itself by contracting very small parts rending that stressed part harder to move and therefore protecting it while the brain is asking for your leg to move.
Probably not going to get a better explanation than this
A “knot” can be individual muscle fibers getting stuck to other fibers due to scar tissue getting built up in a certain area or muscle layers becoming stuck to one another. This type of “knot” can feel clumpy when moved over like many points on the next and between the shoulders.
Individual muscle fibers stuck in contraction or in the “on” position before I would identify more as a trigger point which by definition is a hyper irritable hyper sensitive point in a muscle where an individual fiber is stuck in contraction. True trigger points also have the unique effect of pain referral patters (touch here but feel it over there) which lead to a lot of chronic pain issues that can be tricky to resolve due to pain referring from elsewhere. These are more of the pinpoint type areas since they can be as small as a grain of sand and not so clumpy like the ones mentioned before.
Very minute differences but thought I’d give my two cents. Advanced neuromuscular therapist by education 7 years experience in massage.
Sometimes we don’t know. This is one of those times.
When we don’t know things, we make up fake answers and pretend they’re real. You will get a lot of those fake answers to this question.
Not technically a real thing believe it or not, rather a collective name for various reasons why a muscle is sore
Tetany, aka spasm. The muscle/neuromuscular junction is unable to properly repolarize (reset) after firing (depolarizing), often due to electrolyte or pH imbalances in and around the muscle cells. All the muscle and nerve cells in the body use the potential energy from concentration gradients of ions, particularly calcium, to drive the firing of electrical impulses from one end of the cell to the other. When this balance is thrown off, the signal is “stuck” waiting for that gradient to build up to a sufficient level of energy to fire again.
It’s a muscle that is contracting involuntarily (either partially or completely).
You might also hear it described as a “tight” muscle or a trigger point.
It can be caused by poor posture, overuse, improper technique or electrolyte imbalance (depending on what muscles we’re talking about).
It’s important to stretch and stay hydrated.
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