Stretching

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I have recently been touting the great benefits of stretching and bodyweight exercises to all my clients and everyone in general. I have been amazed at the poor movement quality of people I see in the gym and public and am constantly trying to get people to move better. I tell people, ” you have the capacity to move before you ever start to actually move.” What this means is, if you don’t have the flexibility to go into a deep squat, then guess what you cannot deep squat. This is a result of poor lifestyle choices, lack of physical activity, and poor exercise selection. Lack of movement can lead to pain and injury. I usually find myself hurting just from 30 minutes on the computer. As Eric Cressey likes to say, “the best posture is the one that is always moving.” To continue on, I think everybody should stretch everyday. While that may seem extreme, it not like you have to be on a structured stretching routine, but anything will help. I think these stretches can and should be used by everyone from the typical gym goer to the high level athlete. Basics rule, and they work. Here are some reasons from I took from Mike Robertson why you should incorporate basic stretching into life….

1) Improve length-tension relationships

Every muscle fiber has an optimal resting length that it functions at. If it is too short or too long you don’t get optimal force and thus poor functioning. This will cause postural distortions and poor recruitment, which may lead to entire dysfunction of the kinetic chain (your body). According to Vladimir Janda, a Czechoslovakian exercise physiologist, certain postural muscles are catagorized into two groups: Tonic muscles which tend to harbor tension and receive lots of neural input tend to get tight, and short. And Phasic muscles tend to be weaker and usually don’t need to be stretched as often.

This occurs because of life, which is spent in the five feet in front of you and lifestyle habits. For instance I am sure that you not using your deep abdominal muscles and mid-back musculature to hold you up as you slouch at your desk to read this. You go into any gym and see all those people work those pecs and biceps with bicep curls and bench press. We should be in fact doing the opposite at the gym! Whenever you go to the gym you should be training your glutes, deep core, upper back, and posterior shoulder, because they never get enough stimulation outside of the gym. And you should make sure to stretch the already tight and overactive tonic muscles like pec, hip flexors, calves, and hamstrings. This will improve length-tension relationships between antagonist muscles groups and help develop some kind of structural balance.

2) improve movement quality

Because muscles can now work in their optimal range, tension has dissipated, and you should feel like it is easier to move. Effortless is sometimes how movements will feel, and a sense of lighter/weightlessness feeling. This because your quality of movement has improved and became more efficient. We all need this, and it should be something you aim to do each session. We don’t nearly get outside enough anymore and move around to play. Movement should be fun and effortless, not painful and boring.

3) Decrease likelyhood of Injury

Now I am not sure how many research studies have looked at this because it is hard to quantify. But I can tell you the people  who stretch regularly and have developed adequate flexibility can move well and are less susceptible to injury.  Anytime you can decrease muscle tone in those tight muscles, function is regained, and movement quality increases.

And here are some stretches that I recommend doing. I try to stretch them everyday, especially in those ones I feel get very tight, namely hips and calves, but everyone is different.

1) calf

2) hamstring

3) glute

4) adductors

5) quads

6) pec

7) lat

8) upper trap

9) low back

10) hip flexor