Why Strength Training Holds the Key to Unlocking Muscle Tightness

Do you feel like perpetually tight muscles are just part of your burden to bear? Strength training might change everything.

An Evolving Yoga Journey

I have always enjoyed some type of fitness, from being in the swim squad at school; to aerobics classes; Step; Pump; etc.  However my joints have always been a little unstable i.e. rolled ankles; unstable wrists; sacroiliac pain; low back issues, etc. It was my chronic low back pain that first got me interested in yoga. I was drawn to the challenging classes and the creative flows, to the arm balances and inversions, and how quiet my mind went during my practice.   It felt like I had found a practice that could help me get stronger and more flexible, and I would never have to step foot in a gym. Within a few years, I decided to undergo the rigorous Iyengar yoga teacher training and on completion, started to teach regularly..

But after six years or so, I began to feel more and more limited in my practice. Things that felt like intermittent problems before became more constant issues. I often felt tighter after a yoga class rather than more mobile. I would get a debilitating feeling of tightness in my back or pain in my shoulders, and my hips and upper hamstrings would ache regularly.  Arm balances felt uncomfortable during and after practicing them, and it felt like I was hitting a plateau in my practice. My go-to explanation was age and my inherently wobbly joints. I just accepted it as a fact – maybe it was time to tone down the activity level.

I started to lean more into the restorative classes or substitute a lot of the yoga poses for something else that didn’t cause discomfort - usually a supported passive asana of some sort - and eventually avoided the active classes altogether. A part of me welcomed the slowdown, the chance to give my body a break. Maybe even meditate a bit more.

Challenging My Yoga Beliefs: Addressing Tightness, Pain, & Strength

Slowing down definitely had its perks. However, teaching active classes started feeling like a bit of an act – they just didn't feel authentic anymore. And as much as I eased up, my mobility and pain issues weren't budging. No matter how gently I moved through stretches, the results were frustratingly the same.

By only doing slow practices with low muscle engagement, I had lost so much stamina. And each time I tried more active practices, I was met with the same challenges as before.  It took me a long time to accept that yoga on its own wasn't going to work for me. Yoga was not the answer to everything and, ironically, believing that it should be, only made my yoga practice less and less accessible. I needed some guidance from people who were trained in dealing with injuries and had helped others overcome similar challenges.

Learning From New Teachers

The universe often offers us solutions when we're open to them. And around the time I was feeling fed up, and had now developed a right frozen shoulder, I saw a local Pilates studio had introduced a strength training program in their newly renovated weights gym.   Also, around that time, I was hearing about a few senior yoga teachers had struggled with injuries or plateaus in their yoga practice and had found strength training to be the answer they were missing.  After some time doing these strength classes and venturing into the gym to train on my own, I hired a coach.   She was known for her knowledge in rehabbing injuries through strength training.  She designed personalised strength training programs for me and I quickly saw a huge difference in my body.  Now, I could not only strength train pain-free but also practice yoga pain-free!

The Science Behind Strength and Muscle Tightness

Now, if you're someone who's already diving deep into yoga and stretching, you might be wondering – how could strengthening muscles help alleviate tightness? Let's break it down.  Think of mobility as a chat between your muscles and your nervous system. If your nervous system doesn't feel all warm and fuzzy about a movement, it goes on high alert, tightening things up as a safety measure. Sometimes, muscles kick into gear because they're not strong enough for the task at hand. They tighten up to lend stability to a joint or help out a weaker muscle group.

Accessing strength in deep ranges of motion is essential for decreasing feelings of tightness and increasing mobility. The nervous system can feel unsafe as a result of weakness (ie. your hips chronically feel tight no matter how many pigeons you do because you have no muscular control within that deep range of motion). Gradually building strength in deeper ranges of motion gives your body the sense of control and safety it desires. And with safety, comes fewer sensations of tightness and achiness.  In order for strength training to also increase mobility/flexibility, it’s crucial to work through full ranges of motion in a wide variety of exercises/movement patterns. Those who strength train and believe that lifting weights is what makes them tight probably aren’t working through full ranges of motion in their exercises and/or aren’t utilising a wide enough variety of movements.

But Wait, Doesn't Yoga Build Strength?

I used to be fully on board with the idea that yoga was all about building strength. I thought that by mastering specific poses, I was setting myself up for more advanced postures. What I came to realise was that while yoga does offer a taste of strength-building, especially with the challenging poses, it's more about building strength endurance.

Strength is the maximum amount of force our muscles can generate while strength endurance is their ability to produce a lower amount of force over a longer period of time.  To build strength, weight lifting exercises using a load that you can lift for max six-ish reps. Make sure to give yourself plenty of rest between sets.   Weights that are easier for you to lift (ones that you can lift for many reps) will build more strength endurance than strength.

Wait, Does This Mean Yoga's Not Good?

Absolutely not! Let's set the record straight – yoga isn't the bad guy here, and it definitely doesn't cause tightness. Yoga brings heaps of goodness to the table, from enhancing mental well-being and flexibility to boosting stamina and balance. In fact, yoga can help you tolerate longer muscle lengths, which in turn supports your overall mobility.

But it does mean that yoga is not the ideal way to build strength and therefore not the best way to help alleviate the feeling of muscle tightness that is specifically caused by muscle weakness.  It also means that if you're hitting a plateau in your yoga practice - finding it difficult to improve your postures - strength training can help.  It can help you build the stability, strength, and mobility to access deeper, stronger versions of postures and, potentially, to access postures you could not have accessed before. Most of us can benefit from adding strength training, especially strength training where we are working through full ranges of motion.  Strength training through full ranges of motion is a research-backed strategy for improving range of motion as effectively as passive stretching does!  And the fact that we develop strength right alongside that flexibility simultaneously makes this strategy a total win-win!

The Transformative Power of Strength Training

I’m grateful for each part of this journey because it helped me do what I used to resist - slow down - and then it taught me how to get stronger. I now have a more balanced approach to movement, where I get to have practices where I’m moving very little and practices where I’m moving quite a bit.  You might be thinking, “Yeah yeah this makes sense, but I’m getting older and it makes sense that I’m not as active as I used to be!” I totally feel you!  That’s exactly where I was, and I still value rest as one of my top priorities. But, when it comes to quality of life - bone density and muscular strength make increasingly bigger and better differences as we age. Mostly, they help us continue living our lives by keeping us physically capable and reducing the likelihood of fractures.

It’s all about balance, about finding a routine that works for you, incorporating a variety of activities along with rest and relaxation.

These days, along with taking long walks, I strength train four times per week and practice yoga regularly, using many of the concepts and approaches I learned (and continue to learn) from experts in the industry, from physiotherapists, exercise scientists, rehab specialists, power lifters, women’s health specialists and of course yoga teachers.  Adding these tools to my other resources and my own intuition and experience has been nothing short of transformative.   I can access deeper versions of postures, hold them for longer, and feel good while doing it. I can finish a strong yoga practice feeling grounded and at ease rather than tight, uncomfortable, and sore. I am practicing arm balances and inversions again. My back, shoulders, wrists, glutes, hips, and hamstrings are feeling stronger and stronger and better and better.

I no longer feel that getting older means a declining ability to do challenging yoga postures or “keep up” in general.   

Strength training has given me my power back!