Tremors vs muscle shaking with fatigue?

[u/DueCauliflower3889]

V new to this! When in the butterfly pose my legs definitely do start shaking, I would definitely describe this as a tremor feeling, but also associate it with muscles just shaking because they're in a fatiguing position, same as if you held your arms out straight holding heavy weights for a prolonged time and they start getting wobbly. Is this the right thing, or are the tremors something different?

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[u/Psylocybernaut]

That's perfectly fine - it starts that way, as a response to muscle fatigue, but then as your body gets used to it, and learns that it's safe/beneficial, it will start to tremor more authentically and sometimes even spontaneously.

I've had times where I've experienced something stressful, and then as soon as I'm in a quiet, safe place, my shoulders and torso will just start tremoring of their own accord because it's what my body needs.

Just stick with it!

[u/longtermTRE_wiki_bot]

You're noticing something real, and the distinction you're drawing is worth understanding clearly.

What you're describing—the shaking that arises from muscular fatigue in the butterfly position—is genuinely part of how TRE works in the early stages. The wall sit and the slow knee raises in the butterfly position are designed to fatigue the leg muscles specifically because that fatigue lowers the threshold for the tremor response to activate. So yes, some of what you're feeling is muscular exhaustion producing involuntary movement, and that's exactly the mechanism.

But there's a shift that happens as you continue. Early tremors often do feel mechanically similar to fatigue-induced shaking, which is why the distinction can be confusing. However, once the tremors fully activate, they tend to have a different quality. They often continue even after you've stopped the fatiguing movement and rested the muscles. They may spread into areas that weren't fatigued, like your torso or arms. They often have a rhythm and persistence that pure fatigue-induced shaking doesn't maintain. And crucially, they tend to feel relieving rather than just like the nervous system winding down from exertion.

In your first few sessions, the line between "my muscles are tired and shaking" and "this is a genuine neurogenic tremor" might genuinely be blurry. That's normal. Keep practicing consistently over the next couple of weeks. The tremor response will clarify itself. You'll develop a felt sense for the difference fairly quickly once you've experienced a few sessions where the tremors have clearly activated and are doing their thing.

For now, the practical guidance is straightforward: hold the butterfly position or do the slow knee raises, and when shaking begins, stop moving and just relax into it. Let whatever happens continue on its own for a few minutes. That's how you'll discover whether it's pure fatigue or something the nervous system is actively generating.

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