In middle school P.E. I was told to just lock a joint out
and then passively stretch over that.
You know what I’m talking about, the limp arms to toe touch. Lock your knees
out and then see how far you can dangle towards the floor. The goals of
stretching are to relieve a neuromuscular problem due to tight muscles, and to
lengthen muscles in a way that benefits the athlete. A muscle that can be
stretched to a longer length can contract more and produce more force. That’s
right weightheads, yoga isn’t just for girls anymore. The book FIT points out
that if you move into a stretch too quickly the antagonistic muscles and safeguard
muscles will be fired by the CNS [nervous system]. In theory you should be a
rag doll when stretching and allow the muscle to be slowly pulled with no opposing
force. To my knowledge there is no research that agrees with this; it’s just a
theory that a bunch of big dudes came up after a heavy lifting session.
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So probably like me, you’ve spent your entire life rag-dolling
into stretches. I don’t have anything against stretching this way; I just
assumed this is the only way to do it. That was before I bumped into the vast
knowledge of K-starr. This guy is a physical therapist that has worked with
crossfit for years now. He opened my eyes to many things, but most impactful is
“active” stretching. Remember how we just rag doll into position and assume
that as long as we feel a pull its working. What if that relaxed stretch did
move our muscles, but it moved them in the wrong direction?
When I lift with poor form I am training my muscles to grow
in that direction. Then when I put 500 lbs on the bar and try to squat right, I
hurt. Same goes with stretching. I may feel a nice stretch in my hamstrings,
but what if I mess my hips up by placing them awkwardly. I [we, them,
everybody] need to begin stretching, and flexing.
This lucky guy is using a band to pull his femur into optimal
position for movement. Explaining why he’s doing that is for another post. What
he will then do is create a neutral spine, and flex his glutes (butt). This
sounds a lot more complicated then touch your toes right? He’s doing what a chiropractor
would do with the vertebrate, and what a physical therapist would do with the
muscle. He is aligning his bone structure and then changing the muscle to work
under that environment. In essence he is stretching without stretching, and performing
good technique without performing.
There is a time and place to go limp and feel a stretch. And
then there is a time and place to align your body and just flex-stretch for 120
seconds of pain [soft tissue requires at least 2 minutes of stretching to change/adapt].
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