Two Anatomical Causes of Trigger Points

Trigger points are places in the body where muscles do not function properly because they have been damaged on the cellular level. Massage therapists are taught how to treat trigger points to help relieve people of the pain that they cause. Not everybody who sprains a tendon or pulls a muscle will develop a trigger point, but those that do know that they are a source of constant chronic pain.

Definition of a Trigger Point

• A trigger point appears as a hard tender lump in the body of a muscle. It can be as small as a pin point or as big as a thumb. It is highly sensitive to pressure. A trigger point will have intense contractile activity without any sort of nerve stimulation. It is described as being similar to a muscle cramp, but in a very small circular area.

Trigger Point Anatomy

• A band of muscle that has a trigger point will have normal muscle fibers and a taut band of muscle fibers, which bunch up in a knot and cause stretching and elongation of muscle fibers to either side of the trigger point. The muscle fibers that are stretched like this have severe damage at molecular and sub-cellular levels because of the intense contractile activity in the trigger point area.

Failure to Reabsorb Calcium

• When a muscle contracts, calcium is released into the muscle. In a resting muscle cell the co-enzyme ATP, which is responsible for energy transfer between cells, is bound to myosin, a motor protein. The myosin has to wait for calcium to be released by the cells before it can contract or release a fiber of muscle. Normal muscles have enough ATP in their cells and can reabsorb the calcium and effectively stop muscle contraction. A trigger point zone in the muscle cannot reabsorb the calcium to turn a contraction off. The contraction continues to occur and this causes a build up of lactic acid, which leads to molecular damage of the muscle fibers.