We often have people tell us they are “so tight.” There is a bell curve of flexibility and you can be too tight or too flexible. Ideally it is good to be in the middle of the bell curve. When you have physical “tighness” of a muscle it can be improved with static stretching. Static stretching has copped a bad wrap over the years paricularly as it has been shown to have limited usefulness as part of warm up for sport and consequent risk of injury. Static stretching can improve length of tight muscles with the key being regular stretching.
The other group of people that are “so tight” is the situation whereby the person has protective muscle spasm in relation to an injury. This is a protective response from the brain and can be a very powerful response to protect the region. In this scenario, when the spasm settles the inherent muscle flexibilty returns. It is an important principle with protective muscle spasm to not be overly aggressive with any treatment (including trigger balls, roller, massage etc) or risk aggravating the protective response.
When people have too much flexibility it is termed hyperflexibilty. Hyperflexibility is largely genetically determined (and some environmental factors) and can contribute to increased joint loading and increased muscular demand. The key with hyperflexibility is to have muscular strength around the hyperflexibile region. The irony with people with inherent hyperflexibility is that they often get attracted to sports and activities in which they need lots of mobility eg. dancing, gymnastics, yoga. This is fine as long as there is a strength component to training regimes. The picture below demonstrates a hyperflexible shoulder into external rotation:
