Tender point is a spot that hurts when pressed but does not refer sensation elsewhere, which distinguishes it from a 📝trigger point.
The fingers find a sore place; the sensation stays under the contact. In 📝Trigger Point Therapy that finding still matters — it may be a latent point, a bruise of pressure, or a place the person is guarding — but it is not mapped as a Travell referral. The word is a session distinction, not a diagnosis of fibromyalgia or of a medical tender-point count.
Clients feel it as "it only hurts right there." Pressure is dosed to what they can breathe through. If a later pass suddenly refers, the finding has changed and is named as a trigger point instead.