Stretching Facts
Stretching Facts
By Shane Sauer
I hope you enjoyed last week’s blog on Stretching Myths.
Today, I want to dispel one more stretching myth for you and then give you a few important facts to keep in mind.
Perhaps the most important myth for you to move on from is that “tightness is a bad thing”.
In truth, tightness is an important tool that your brain uses to protect you and keep you safe.
Movement is important, but it is also dangerous. When you don’t have great control over your joints your brain prefers to limit them to a range it is comfortable with.
There can be a lot of reasons for poor joint control – from injury to lack of practice. No matter the reason, if you want to improve your range of motion, you need to address what your brain perceives as threatening.
Here are some reasons you might not have control of your joints:
The Active-Passive Gap - An active ROM (range of motion) is how much you can move your joints with the strength of your muscles. A passive ROM is where your joints can go if you have help (from a person, tool, or gravity). The gap between active and passive ROMs is the scary place where you lack control and are at the greatest risk for injury.
Imbalanced Muscles - Many of your muscles come in opposing pairs, like your biceps and your triceps. They create opposite actions around a joint. When one muscle group is significantly stronger than its opposing group, there is an imbalance and your joint can be unstable.
Poor Contractile Maps - The ability to contract and relax your muscles is a skill. When a muscle is chronically tight, you may have lost the ability to do either. Sometimes, retraining your ability to contract a muscle will also teach it how to relax.
In all of these cases, stretching your muscles more is not going to reduce tightness. The real solution in these situations is to strengthen your muscles.
It might seem counterintuitive to practice squeezing a tight muscle, but when you gain more control over the muscle, remove imbalances, and shrink the Active-Passive Gap, you create the situation where your brain finally gives the muscle permission to relax.
The final thing you need to know is that there many different ways to stretch the same muscle. Different stretches will do a better job of getting a different part of a single muscle. When one stretch is not cutting it for you, use a different stretch for the same muscle.
If you think you might be struggling with flexibility because of one of the reasons above and want some help, just send us an email and I’ll give you some insight.
Lastly, Yoga is a system that helps you with everything discussed in this email. I encourage you to try a class at MATRIX.