What is a muscle "knot"?

Before I went to massage school, I really didn't know what those bumps were in your muscles that hurt when you touched them.  I had been taught a technique in aikido (called kiatsu) that could help them diminish or get rid of them completely, but I never really knew what they were. Now I can explain.

Muscles in your body are actually bundles of thin muscles strands surrounded by fascia.  (It's really more complicated than that but this is a good visual.)  Fascia is connective tissue all over your body that has different jobs depending on where it is.  The fascia that surrounds the muscle strands keeps them  lubricated so that they move freely when contracted and relaxed.  If you are dehydrated or tense or injured the fascia doesn't work as well.  The muscle strands adhere to one another and don't contract and relax as they should. So those "knots" that you feel that hurt are really just your muscle strands bunching together and not allowing free movement as they should.  So when you or another person presses on them in the right way it helps break up the fascia and separate the muscle strands. Fresh blood gets into the area and promotes healing.  

So how do you prevent those muscle knots in the first place?  Well, of course drink lots of water.  It's also important to warm up before you exercise and to stretch when you are done as you are cooling down.  It's actually not a good idea to stretch BEFORE you work out because you have not warmed up the muscles yet, so you could actually do more harm than good if you stretch too soon.  It's also very good to drink water as you are exercising to keep that fascia lubricated.

Fascia has memory.  It can get "stuck" in a shortened length preventing the muscles from stretching as they should.  It also has more pain receptors than your muscle.  So when you have that nagging tightness, it is probably your fascia.  Sitting at a desk, leaning over you cell phone, bent over your work, are all ways that fascia gets shortened.  So drink lots of water, get up and move around frequently, and, of course, get a regular massage.