By Amy Schiller
STRETCH OUT:
End Your Workout with Flexilibity Training
I was stretching after a weight training session at the ARC, I couldn’t help but overhear members discussing stretching. As a high school athlete one guy said he never stretched and was never injured, though he felt lucky at the results. The other said that there is no evidence that stretching and flexibility help prevent injury. Their conversation got me thinking about how little people know about the benefits of stretching. Contrary to many beliefs, there is research evidence that flexibility training DOES help prevent injury among other things.
8 Benefits of Stretching:
- Increased range of motion (Taylor, Dalton, Seaber, & Garrett, 1990).
- Reduction of low back pain and injury (Bach, Green, & Jensen, 1985; Farfan, 1973).
- Injury reduction: both incidence and severity (Safran, Garrett, Seaber, Glisson, & Ribbeck, 1988).
- Improved posture (Corbin & Noble, 1980).
- Delayed muscular fatigue (DeVries & Adams, 1972).
- Reduced muscle soreness after exercise (DeVries, 1961).
- Increase in muscular efficiency (Beaulieu, 1980).
- Mental relaxation (DeVries, Wiswell, Bulbulion, & Moritani, 1981).
Posture (Mind Over Gravity)
The first step to correct posture in stretching is to know the appropriate degree of the stretch for your personal body. This is often a reality check. You see flexible people pictured in magazines, yoga teachers and others who can go deeply into a stretch but that can be misleading. We have to focus on how it feels and not how it looks. In addition, for those who lack flexibility, gravity can work against us. For example in a forward bend targeting the hamstrings, a person who is flexible benefits from gravity pressing their torso toward their legs. A person with tight hamstrings, however, will need to make adjustments such as using a strap around their feet to enable a slight pressure of the chest toward the thighs.
A second step to successful stretching is to paying close attention to where you feel the stretch. For example, a forward bend should not produce sensation in the shoulders and neck. This sensation is typically the result from curling the spine in an effort to force the head toward the legs. So a person must back off and straighten the spine.
There are many great resources for finding appropriate stretches. In the ARC there are boards on the north wall of the fitness room with several recommended stretches. A personal favorite resource is the online Yoga Journal: http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/finder/anatomical_focus where you can find stretches for different body parts. The ARC offers 12 yoga classes per week and members at all levels of fitness and flexibility are welcome.
Technique
Stretching techniques refer to the approach to a posture including how long a stretch is held, counter pressure and isometric contraction. These techniques are continually evolving. Like resistance training for sports, flexibility training programs should vary from person to person, depending on your goals, activities, body symmetry, history and other variables. If you participate in yoga classes, you know that even within the yoga system, there are vast variations in technique and duration as well as sequencing. Sequencing is the order in which you do the stretches.
Passive Stretching:
You’ll see personal trainers using this technique with their clients. The client relaxes and the personal trainer applies a force to lengthen the muscle. This technique is recommended only for highly trained individuals.
Ballistic Stretching:
Ballistic stretching uses bouncing movements to take the joint from an intense to less intense range. This technique is not recommended due to the likelihood that momentum can cause injuries. Less popular than in the 70s!
Static Stretching:
A widely accepted method for improving flexibility when performed following exercise and most common because it requires little training. Keeping the muscle that is being stretched as relaxed as possible, gradually working to a point of slight discomfort (not pain), and then holding the position for 15 to 30 seconds. Taylor (Taylor et al., 1990) reported significant improvement in flexibility using four sets of 15-20 seconds per stretch. In yoga we will often hold each stretch for 5 to 10 breaths (a duration of several minutes in some instances).
Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation (PNF):
PNF Type 1: Contract-Relax:
Stretch the target muscle group. Then bring the body back toward neutral position, reducing the stretch and contract the muscle for 4 to 6 seconds. The contraction is "isometric" because movement of the body segment is resisted by the individual, a strap or a partner. Then relax the contracted muscle group and finally stretch again, hopefully to a new point of limitation.
PNF Type 2: Contract-Relax Agonist Contract:
First, stretch the muscle to a comfortable level. Second, keeping the stretched position, contract the opposing muscle(s) for 4 to 6 seconds against a resistance such as a strap or block. Third, stretch the target muscle group further. Researchers have found the contract-relax agonist contract technique to be superior to the contract-relax technique for improving range of motion (Etnyre & Lawrence, 1988).
Stretching:
Ashtanga/Iyengar Contract Agonist
In Ashtanga and Iyengar yoga training techniques, the muscle that opposes the stretched muscle remains contracted throughout the stretch. For example, when bending forward to stretch the hamstrings, one keeps the front thigh (quadriceps) contracted through the duration of the static position.
Weight Lifting and Stretching
In studies conducted in 1956 and 1963 researches tested weight training participants for flexibility. They found that resistance training, executed through a full range of motion, can improve a person's flexibility. If you begin a new stretching regimen that follows your weight training work out, test the theory for yourself. You may find that weight training is an excellent activity prior to a yoga class at the ARC.
Don’t Static Stretch for Your Warm Up
In an study conducted at the Duke University Medical Center, Orthopaedic Research Laboratories in 1988 researchers found that proper warm-ups reduced the incidence and severity of injury (Safran, Garrett, Seaber, Glisson, & Ribbeck).
A warm-up should be comprised of activities that slowly raise the body temperature. The goal is to break a sweat, but not fatigue. The best warm-ups are accomplished with a full-body rhythmic activity such as stationary cycling, walking, jogging or dynamic programs. A good warm-up should be at least 5 –10 minutes in length. Check this website for some great dynamic warm-up techniques that do not require a cardio machine. http://www.sport-fitness-advisor.com/dynamic-stretches.html.
A Good Time Stretch
Flexibility training should be done after the completion of an exercise program, training session or competition. Post workout, the body’s soft tissue temperature is elevated allowing you to stretch safely. The post workout stretch allows you to reduce lactic acid in the soft tissue resulting in reduced soreness. This is also the time to enjoy the endorphin chemistry which generally allows a sense of deep relaxation. That’s exactly the message you want to send to your muscles.
Importance of Breathing
Breathing techniques are an integral part of yoga stretching and offer a point of focus for the practitioner. Deep breathing that allows rhythmic motion of the abdomen, chest and back help keep the body warm and enhances the opportunity to relax the target muscles.
For flexibility to increase one must be patient over the course of months and years with consistent careful application of a slow and progressively increasing stretch just past the point of limitation, but not to the point of pain. When you are stretching correctly, it will feel great. That’s why yoga practitioners focus on the “the present moment” – in other words the means and not the ends. If you practice flexibility without goals in mind you create an opportunity to become totally relaxed in mind and body.
Last update: 12/16/08
