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STRETCHING
 The
following article is a small excerpt from one of my books.
I hope you’ll want to learn more and let me help you to get
into the best shape of your life.
Studies of the way we walk have revealed that muscle imbalances develop
because the muscles of your lower body gradually shorten over time.
These large muscles of your lower body will remain shortened for the
rest of your life if proper stretching is not performed. Before I get
into how to perform these proper stretches, it's important to understand
a few mechanical things about your body.
Tendons are the most inelastic connective tissue in your body, and they
attach your muscles to your bones. All muscles have a tendon of origin,
which is attached to the more stable bone and a tendon of insertion
which is attached to the more moveable bone. Tendons are stronger than
both the muscle and the bone covering that it attaches to. Tendons can
be torn or ruptured if loaded beyond their strength but since they are
very strong, what usually happens is the muscle tissue or the bone
covering tears before the tendon. What all this really means is that
tendons can not be stretched.
Your ligaments help to stabilize and reinforce your joints by connecting
bone to bone. Your ligaments can take an enormous amount of force for a
very brief time and if the force is not removed, the ligament will tear
or rupture. If a ligament is damaged it usually takes between eight to
twelve weeks for it to regain its strength. During that time your joint
must be protected and supported by either taping it or using a brace.
When your ligaments are put under stress by incorrect stretching, they
will gradually elongate. As the ligament elongates it becomes weaker and
is unable to properly bind the bones of the joint that it is suppose to
support. If the ligament is continually put under stress by repetitive
stretching beyond the ligaments tensile strength, it can become
permanently elongated and can lead to chronic inflammation which may
lead to arthritis.
When a muscle is working properly, it is expending energy by either
shortening or elongating to produce motion across a joint or it's
maintaining its length by resisting the tension and holding your body in
place. In reality nothing really stretches when stretching.
When a muscle group is placed under force, the muscle contracts and
millions of myofilaments, shorten to respond to the loading force. The
muscle is now using energy to resist this force. If the tension is held
long enough, and the muscle is not overloaded, the muscle will
eventually relax back to its original resting length. This happens by
overlapping protein fibers sliding past their original resting length
and will continue their sliding until there is no longer any tension on
the muscle. Energy is stored in your muscles during this sliding
process, giving your muscles more power.
You can now define strength as how large your muscle is, how much load
it can hold and how much tension it can hold without tearing. If you
want to increase your power, you can hopefully see how important
stretching is. Since a muscle uses its greatest tension when its at its
greatest length, it can therefore lift a greater load if it is
pre-stretched from its resting length prior to receiving a loading
force. The bottom line is you get strength by increasing you muscle mass
by exercising and you get power by elongating your muscle fibres through
stretching.
The danger when exercising without stretching is that the length of your
individual muscle fibres become shortened by repetitive use and fatigue.
Over time this muscle shortening may cause imbalances that can lead to
ligament damage, joint hyper mobility and loss of function and power.
Stretching helps to prevent this shortening of your muscle fibres and
helps to prevent
injuries.
Before you start any stretching routine you should perform a gentle set
of warm ups. Warm ups are not stretches, they are usually a gentle
repetitive motion that increases blood flow and warms your muscles.
Ideal warm ups would be walking, cycling, treadmill, rowing and stair
climbing. Running slowly and skipping rope are generally not good warm
up exercises and may lead to injuries.
For an example, a person walking normally and weighing 63 kg. (140
pounds) will hit the ground with their body weight plus 20 percent or 75
kg. (168 pounds) per square inch of impact force. The same person
running well, but not sprinting and not jogging will land with an impact
force of about three times that of their walking force or in this case
225 kg. (504 pounds) per square inch of impact force. When a person jogs
slowly they reduce the body's ability to handle impact and at the same
time has increased the amount of weight bearing impact it has to handle.
Jogging slowly has a loading force of about four times that of walking
or in this case 300 kg. (672 pounds) per square inch of loading force. A
training error is running slowly to warm up. Overtime it will create
degenerative changes to your knee, pelvis and spine.
Stretches should be simple and be able to be performed by you without
the aid of a partner. The stretch must also isolate only one major
muscle or muscle group and be in a position where it is not expending
energy to maintain its position. A good example of this would be the
'runner's stretch' this is really not a stretch because the hip flexors
are contracted, working and expending energy in order to stabilize your
trunk as you lower and raise your body. A proper stretch should also not
load other structures such as ligaments or joint capsules. Any stretch
that places an abnormal stress on the ligament will slowly cause
permanent damage. An example of this would be the hurdlers stretch. In
stretching the hamstrings of one leg, the ligaments of the opposite knee
are placed under abnormal stress.
When stretching, if you load the muscle harder it will serve no purpose
except that it will take longer for it to relax back to its original
resting length and also there is a higher risk of injury due to over
stretching. Stretches also cannot be timed. The tension must be gentle,
steady and constant so as to allow the muscle fibers to relax and slide
past their current resting length. The time it takes to relax back to
its original length will vary from person to person and from day to day.
You have to listen to your body and hold the position until the tension
in your muscle is gone.
You should stretch immediately before a skill level activity or sporting
event to best take advantage of the increased power in your muscle. If
you stretch a half-hour before an event, the muscle will contract back
to its original resting length and the stored energy will dissipate as
heat and the energy that was stored by stretching will have been
wasted.
In the book
‘Get Fit Stay Fit’
it will describe and show you how to
properly perform stretches. The problem won’t be in your ability to
perform these stretches but to adopt a new approach to stretching and
improving your flexibility. The more flexible a joint is, the greater
its ability to move through a complete range of motion and function more
efficiently and resulting in an increase in physical performance.
I know you want to get in shape and look great. Whatever your fitness
goal to slim down... gain muscle... tone your arms or flatten your tummy I’m
here to help you accomplish your goals and to improve your fitness
level. You will learn how to select and combine your diet with exercise,
so that you can be the best you can be.
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