chronic muscular tension

Constant pain in the body can be due to muscles being under continuous tension.
Muscles are designed to do one thing - to contract, or grow shorter - which occurs when the muscle receives an electrochemical signal from the central nervous system. When the signal stops, the contraction stops and the muscle relaxes back to its original length.  Or it should do.
The problem is that many of us do not fully relax the back muscles to their full length once a movement (contraction) has finished. The muscles remain 10, 20 or even 40% contracted and we continue to burn energy doing so.  This is chronic muscular tension.
At 10% tension the muscle will always feel tired and firm
At 20% the muscle will feel tired, very firm and sore
At 40% it will feel tired, hard and quite painful
This can often feel like weakness because it’s difficult to move freely, but the muscles are actually quite strong, but also overworked from contracting all the time.   
This muscular stiffness, limited movement, tiredness and pain are often misinterpreted as the effects of ‘old age’.
But in fact they are a reaction to stressful and traumatic events causing us to stay in ‘fight flight mode’ rather than being able to shift into parasympathetic state, where the body does it’s best resting, digesting and normal day to day functioning.
​The good news is these muscular reactions to stress can be overcome through stretching and using the PNF (contract and release) technique to fully relax the muscles.