release the neck, relax the quads. wait, what?!

I have had two knots in my quads, one on each leg, in the lateral quad, just above the knee for years. I have come to think of the two of them as an unyielding pair and have followed the general protocol for releasing adhesions: I have spent countless hours rolling them out on foam rollers and lacrosse balls, stretching and having massage therapists, ART practitioners and physical therapist dig their thumbs or elbows into them to try and get them to go away, permanently AND have done a ton of strength training (adhesions don’t just disappear because you stretch and release, you have to make sure the muscles are strong enough to do what you are asking them to do).

Since I sold my car, I am now biking everywhere, all the time, these two knots have become tighter and denser and more painful. As has my neck and shoulders, but I never considered that the two could be related.

I went in to see my physical therapist yesterday, to work on my neck and shoulders (radiating tightness down my arms? Sadly, yes.).

Well, as he worked out my scalenes, traps and levator scaps, my quads relaxed and those two twin knots released. Fully. Without my PT ever actually working on them directly. Three days later and my quads feel like butter, not a sack full of golf balls. It makes sense, actually, as the muscles in my neck and shoulders are points on the gall bladder meridian line in Chinese Medicine and those two knots are also on the gall bladder line. Once again, I am wowed by how connected each point in our body is to all other points.