Flexibility Training: Why Stretching isn’t Helping

By Derek Bye | B.S. Exercise Science, ACSM-CPT

For years we have been taught that stretching is the key to having Gumby-like flexibility. Many people spend way too much time in the gym holding painful stretches with limited improvement in their overall flexibility. I’m not here to say that stretching is bad or useless, but I do want to shed some light on how flexibility works so we can train smarter and get the results we’re looking for.

I’m going to be honest right off the bat. Flexibility, or range of motion (ROM), is a complex system that is largely controlled by our nervous system. Muscle tonicity (the continuous partial contraction of muscles to maintain posture) is controlled through nerve innervation and can be influenced through a variety of factors. These factors include (and are not limited to)…

1. Lack of strength in the muscle through full ROM

This is a concept that has very little research behind it despite being a more than likely cause for people that have lost significant amounts of mobility. There’s an old saying that says “use it or lose it” which is 100% true, meaning if you’re not moving through full range of motion on a consistent basis, you’ll lose your mobility over time.

The theory behind this idea is that the pain you feel (for example when stretching your hamstrings) are pain signals to signify that you are moving into a position that is unsafe for your body to move in. Why is this position unsafe? Because you are lacking the strength and stability to hold that position without damaging the muscle. This is why it’s essential to always use a full range of motion when exercising. Even better, we can try to increase our flexibility by lowering the weight until the muscle is being slightly stretched, and then contracting the muscle. If our theory is correct (which I’m nearly 100% positive that it is) we will increase our flexibility because we’ll be strengthening the muscle through an increased range of motion.

A great exercise to try this out on is a Romanian deadlift. In this exercise, lower the weight until you can feel a slight stretch in your hamstrings, and then contract the muscle and bring the weight back up. Here we’re applying our theory of increasing strength through ROM in order to increase our flexibility. Another great exercise to try this out on is a pull-up/lat-pulldown. Lower your weight until you can feel a stretch through your shoulders and lats, then contract and pull the weight. You’re going to have to put your ego aside and do less weight on these exercises at first, but I can guarantee that this will leave your muscles sore while hitting every last muscle fiber you have.

2. Weakness in an agonist muscle

Weakness in an agonist muscle is another common cause of muscle tightness. Again, I’ll use the hamstrings as an example. One of the primary functions of the hamstrings is to extend the hip. This muscle shares a job with the gluteus maximus, which is also responsible for extension at the hips. If your glutes are weak and not doing their job correctly, the hamstrings may shorten and lose their pliability because they need to compensate for the lack of activation from the glutes. In this scenario, strengthening the glutes may result in the ability for the hamstrings to release and become more flexible.

3. Subconscious thinking (muscular holding patterns)

Many of our muscles (especially our postural muscles) are controlled through our subconscious mind and we have very limited ability to control them.

However, a lot of times there is an emotional component to our muscular system that is overlooked. This emotional connection can be referred to as a “muscular holding pattern”, which means that what we’re thinking in our head is being expressed through the muscles in our body. Most of the time, we’re unaware of this type of muscle activation since it’s simply the bodies response to an emotional stimulus. Here’s a scenario to help make this more simple..

Imagine you are sitting at home and you hear a huge “bang” during a thunderstorm. You’ll likely become startled by the noise, and you may end up hiking your shoulders up as a response to being scared. This hiking of the shoulders is done subconsciously and results in the contraction of certain muscles in the shoulder region (trapezius, levator scapulae). This reaction to being scared is naturally engrained in your body as a response to fear. For some people, they may hold this type of tension 24/7 without even realizing it. This is what we refer to as a muscular holding pattern. Someone working a stressful job may hold a lot of tightness around their neck and upper back as a response to being heavily stressed. This can lead to issues such as poor posture, shoulder pain, and neck pain. The best way to relieve muscular holding patterns that are causing pain or decreasing your flexibility is to massage the muscle, meditate, and determine what emotional connection you have to a particular holding pattern (oftentimes an anxiety response) so that you can relieve it.

As you can tell, flexibility is much more complicated than simply stretching the sh!t out of our muscles. Next time you go to the gym, don’t feel bad that you didn’t stretch because it may not be all that important after all.

In order to maintain your mobility/flexibility make sure you’re always..

1. Exercising through full range of motion

2. Exercising all muscle groups within the body with proper form (developing muscle balance)

3. Keeping stress/anxiety low

If you found this information interesting please share with someone!

Once again, I’m not here to say that stretching is bad by any means. Stretching does help stretch out the fascia (imagine Saran Wrap covering your muscles) and tendons. Muscle pliability itself is most-likely not hugely influenced by stretching in the long-term, and these other options should be much more helpful for you to improve your mobility and flexibility in the long-term.

Any questions email me at dbye1023@gmail.com

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