The answer to the question is “yes and no”. There are many types of connective tissue in the body including fascia, tendons, and ligaments, but for our purpose here lets talk about the skeletal muscle. All of your joints are held in position by your skeletal muscles. If a muscle is too tight it may stress and pull on the bone where it attaches so that the joint loses its proper position. In the image below you can see just one layer of muscles that move, stabilize, and align the muscles in your neck. If like me, you spend a lot of time using a computer mouse, the muscles that attach to your vertebrae on your mouse side may become too tight. Besides pain and tension, this can lead to your cervical vertebrae being pulled out of position by the tension.
All that makes sense but “what does the acupuncture needle have to do with it?” you may ask. The answer is refreshing the “action potential”. Your skeletal muscles contract based on electrical impulses generated by your nervous system and travel through your nerves to the muscle. When the signal is incorrect skeletal muscles may be over-contracted (aka tight) or under-contracted (aka weak). The muscle imbalance due to the incorrect impulses through your nervous system lead to subluxations, misalignments, and pain in your joints.
An acupuncturist interacts with your nervous system to change the impulses and action potential to a more balanced state. This effect in essence is one of the main ways acupuncture exerts its effect on the body. When the nerve impulse to the muscles that stabilize and align joints are corrected, the joint naturally realigns, tension melts away, and pain disappears. This is illustrated in ancient Chinese five element theory called the controlling cycle “Earth controls Water”. Each of the five elements has an associated tissue type. The tissue of earth is muscle and the tissue of water is bone. According to five element theory “Earth controls Water” or in other words “Muscle controls Bone”.
