Flexibility refers to a muscles’ ability to achieve its full, natural length through motion around a joint. To maximize flexibility it’s important to first note that muscle is a living, breathing thing. It is made up of chains of amino acids (protein), it uses oxygen, it has its own local metabolism for certain tasks, and it adapts to the stresses placed on it. In spite of this perceived complexity, muscle is rather “dumb”. It knows how to do two things, contract and relax. Muscles contract to create motion on one side of a joint, while muscles on the other side of the joint relax. In order to create safe, effective range of motion around a joint, there has to be a balance of strength, as well as appropriate length of the muscles involved with a movement on either side of a joint. Understanding this relationship, you can see that in order to increase range of motion or flexibility, you have to improve the relationship of strength and length on either side of the joint. Let’s first talk about improving and restoring proper muscle length.

The first step in improving muscle length is addressing the quality of the actual tissue. Muscles in the body are surrounded by connective tissue called “fascia”. When the muscular system undergoes physical or physiological stress, the fascia responds by tightening around the muscle. Instead of being pliable and adaptive to the movement needs of the muscle, it constricts the muscle’s ability to act as it should. In addition, it can affect the amount of blood and nutrients coming in and out of the muscle. Good stuff can’t get in and bad stuff can’t get out. This tightening of the fascia happens from stresses to the body brought on from emotional stress, poor nutrition, dehydration, toxicity, lack of movement, or high intensity movement as seen in sports or exercise. When tight fascia is limiting the function of a muscle, the effect of stretching is diminished. To maximize the positive effect of any flexibility program it is important to make sure the fascia is addressed. Stay hydrated, avoid caffeine, manage emotional stress, eat properly, warm up before exercise, stretch after exercise, and probably the most important, get massage and bodywork! Massage helps break down the tightening tissue, allowing not only for appropriate tissue length, but also tissue nutrition (good stuff in, bad stuff out). Foam rollers and tennis ball work are a great alternative to massage as well. Talk to a knowledgeable trainer to find out flexibility exercises using these tools.

Aside from improving tissue quality, the right type of stretching can help restore proper muscle length. First, it’s important to understand how stretching works. Because muscle is dumb, our body has safeguards to make sure that we don’t create damage by lengthening it too far or too fast. In addition, these safeguards protect the muscle from contracting too hard to overcome a force. Think of these safeguards as little computer chips in the muscle and tendons, monitoring the length of the muscle as well as the amount and rate of force applied to it. If too much force is applied, or if the muscle gets longer than the body thinks it is supposed to, these computer chips send massages to get your muscles out of trouble either by contracting to re-shorten, or by shutting down. For example, imagine if you were lying on your back and someone was stretching your hamstrings. If they, god forbid, decided to quickly force your leg past it’s comfortable range of motion, your hamstring would immediately resist this force instead of being stretched further than it’s capable. What stretching does is re-set these “computer chips” by convincing the body that the muscle length you are accomplishing is OK. If you slowly move into a stretch, stop the stretch before it feels painful, and hold it for a period of about 20 seconds, you stay under the radar of these “computer chips”. The slow, sustained increase in muscle length doesn’t alarm any of the sensors, so it is allowed to happen. When you do this repeatedly, you convince your neural system that it’s OK to have this change in muscle length become permanent. The “computer chips” are then reset by your neural system. This can be done using movement patterns as well. For example, if you are a beginner martial artist, your kicks usually aren’t able to get very high. The more you practice kicking, the more you convince the muscle sensors that this is a normal activity, nothing to be alarmed about. The muscles slowly allow a greater range of motion with practice.

Young athletes are a unique group. Their bodies are constantly growing and changing. Bones grow and muscles are forced to adapt to this growth. Muscle and fascia is forced to elongate to accommodate the longer bones. As we learned above, muscles go into a protective mode. The fascia tightens to protect the muscle. When a youngster in this phase of growth is involved in sports, they are constantly contracting and relaxing these muscles. If the muscle can’t shorten and lengthen effectively, there is an increased amount of tension put on the area where the muscle attaches to the bone, called the tendon. This causes swelling and pain at that attachment. This is most common with youngsters at areas like the knees and heels. Pain can decrease with ice and ibuprofen, but properly addressing tissue quality, proper movement patterns, and stretching can help prevent and lessen these symptoms. Here are specific recommendations for flexibility with young athletes:

1. Learn how to use foam rollers and tennis balls as massage tools. Use them before and after sports practice, or any other time. These techniques should be used before standard stretching.
2. Get massage or bodywork a minimum of every 6 weeks.
3. Eat well, stay hydrated, and get plenty of sleep.
4. Use a movement based warm-up before intensive physical activity. The movements should be progressively more dynamic and consist of large ranges of motion like the ones seen in sports. Lunges, Frankenstein walks, marches, shuffles, skips and variations of bear crawls are great warm-up exercises.
5. After exercise, perform slow, prolonged stretches particularly in areas such as the calves, hamstrings, quads, adductors and glutes. Hold these stretches for about 20 seconds and don’t go past a “7 out of 10” on a pain scale.
6. Stay moving! Muscles need to be used to function effectively at the proper length and strength. When kids sit around, muscles shorten and become weak. Fascia becomes tight from lack of movement. Problems from inactivity can last a life time!

Let’s teach our kids to become happy, healthy, pain-free adults!


Guest Article
"Overcoming Challenges"
By Pat Jak
We all encounter problems in our lives - obstacles or challenges that seem to keep us from reaching our goals. They can consume our every fiber and drag us down. From the standpoint of our health and fitness they can disrupt our peace of mind, our state of being, and even our ability to exercise. As you are reading this, you may even be thinking about your own obstacles and issues, both small and large.

Maybe you are overworked or under so much stress from time consuming projects or weekly appointments you can't get to the gym for a workout. You may feel overwhelmed with tasks and projects before you. Or you are possibly agonizing over an important life decision and these distractions just seem to be too much.

CLICK HERE to read how these challenged athletes road from San Francisco to San Diego.


E-Book
Todd Durkin & His Personal Trainer Mastermind Group Have Released a New E-Book

 

Are you frustrated with your current health & fitness progress and looking for a way to:

• Get in better shape?
• Improve your nutrition?
• Achieve long-lasting results in health and wellness?
• Stay motivated so you can create the life of your dreams?

If so, there is an "instant access" resource for you to improve your health, fitness, nutrition and overall energy. Whether it's to lose weight, improve your nutrition, overcome obstacles & challenges, or just to create a positive mind set for success, Todd has the answer for you. This e-book that is delivered digitally upon purchase is a synthesis of Todd's top articles of all time along with many new articles from the standout group of trainers from Todd's Personal Trainer Mastermind Group.

It is is perfect for you if you are a:

• Busy executives with "no time to exercise"
• "House Moms" trying to juggle dozens of responsibilities
• Baby Boomers who feels the signs of aging
• Recreational athletes who want to improve performance
• Fitness enthusiasts looking for ways to boost your program
• You just want an infusion of positive mindset and energy and want to find out the best ways to receive that!

Get instant access to success tips on training, motivation, nutrition, coaching and more from Todd Durkin and his Mastermind Group of the top fitness professionals around the country-it's like having a team of fitness pros at your fingertips.

 

Fuel Your Mind with Motivation & Inspiration Shared in Todd's New E-book Release:

"Your Balanced Body, Your Balanced Life"

This is a special invitation to invest in yourself and enhance the quality of your life by investing in the Todd Durkin Mastermind Group's Ebook: Your Balanced Body, Your Balanced Life: Top Methods to Discover Your Optimum Health, Fitness, & Harmony.

 

 

 

For the low cost of $37.00, this special e-book has over 20 fact-filled, fun, educational, and motivational articles on topics that deal with weight loss, physical conditioning, pain management, disease prevention, and motivation. The compilation of such content for you is worth hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars for you. These are Todd's and his group's favorite articles written by them to help you reach your goals.

 

Best of all, when you purchase it, it simply gets emailed to you and you can read it immediately at your computer or you can print it out to read at your leisure.

 

CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE NOW!

If you're frustrated, stalled, stuck in a rut, or bored with your fitness progress and want to jump start your energy, then this is a great resource for you.