Stretching and Flexibility 

Flexibility is a key component of any effective physical fitness program that must be imbedded into your consciousness from an early stage of your getting-into-fitness education. If it is not stressed and reinforced early, you will tend to pick up bad habits that will hamper your overall goals of turning your body into a well-oiled machine. In this section I will talk about why it is important, the mechanical semantics of stretching and how to incorporate it into your routines.

                                        

Having a good level of flexibility is kind of a misnomer as that is a generalization applied to a whole person when the real story is understanding it on a per muscle group basis. A given muscle group will have properties such as mass, strength, range of motion, density and flexibility, and they can be different for each muscle group. Since the body is in a constant state of adaptation, muscles do what they need to do, when they need to do it. You can have really poor flexibility but great strength in one muscle group, then the reverse for another. The key to increasing all of these factors is paying close attention to their flexibility, as it catalyses and fast-tracks the growth of every other area.

Why Stretch? 

Stretching increases blood flow to the muscles and puts the fibers back in proper alignment. When engaged in a proper physical fitness regimen, a good stretching routine is necessary to keep pace with your body as it strengthens itself and drastically reduces the likelihood of injury.

What is flexibility?

To me, flexibility is made up of two sub-properties that I will call elasticity and range of motion.

GET myBody://anteriorDeltoid/flexibility/elasticity
GET myBody://anteriorDeltoid/flexibility/ROM

The elasticity of the muscle is a direct measure of its ability to be pulled across the two bone endpoints to which it is attached. It also illustrates your ability to resist injury from a sudden pulling impact upon the body that could cause a stain or a sprain. The springier and more elastic the muscle is, the stronger and more resilient it will be to injury.

Range of motion is pretty self explanatory as it defines the area in which a given joint can move around in. The greater your range of motion, the easier it is for you to move your body about and use it to apply leverage from a variety of positions. The neck is a good example for understanding range of motion for not only is it governed by the state and function of the Trapezius and Splenius muscles but it is also affected by the overall health of the vertebrae and spinal discs in your neck. (Understanding the subtleties of the spine is beyond the scope of this article, but I did want to give you a bit of a taste in understanding of how far down the rabbit hole these subjects can go.)

Try turning your head all the way to the left and right, then leaning it over from side to side and pay attention to how far you can go before it is uncomfortable and what it feels like. Keeping your neck flexible and strong can be the difference in living or living paralyzed in the case of an impact to the head that violently jars it to one side. If the spine snaps or otherwise suffers an electrical or synaptic disconnect as a result of the injury, you will probably not be able to use your body ever again. Your first line of defense ( after your helmet ) in resisting this type of injury will be measured by how strong and flexible your neck actually is. The greater these factors are, the greater your chances of surviving such a blow will be.

Muscle Stretching Theory:

When you stretch a muscle, there are two things you need to pay attention to:

• The positioning of your body relative to the muscle being stretched
• The involuntary response by the muscle being stretched

The positioning of your body in the way you do the stretch is crucial. Even the most subtle change in the mechanical posture executing the stretch can change the results drastically.
Let’s take the toe-touch stretch for example:

Reach down and try to touch your toes with your knees locked ( your thigh and calf are parallel and there is no bend to your knees when they are locked ). As you reach down and touch your toes, you will notice your general anxiety level begin to increase and your overall zest for life begin to disappear as you wonder why you are doing something so incredibly lame…

This is a compound stretch of the lower back, the calf, and quite awkwardly, the hamstring tendons where they connect to the back of the knee. I find this stretch quite unpleasant and nauseating and I just don’t do it a whole lot. Now, unlock your knees and put about a 10 degree bend in them and try the same type of movement again. You will feel a completely different stretch is taking place with just a slight adjustment to the angle of your knees. You have changed the stretch into a complete hamstring stretch which even gets a bit of your gluteus on the lower end. I do this stretch several times a week as it is a perfect complement for my weekly leg routines. What to learn here is that your form is the most important factor for making a given stretch effective.

The involuntary response of the muscle is a more advanced component of stretching, but learning it will allow you to hack your way into flexibility faster than someone who hasn’t.
Lean into a well formed stretch and hold it, giving it a nice, firm stretch. The pain and discomfort the muscle goes through is part of its tightening response when it experiences such a pull. When you stretch a muscle, it will tighten up in response to prevent itself from being torn apart or destroyed. ( Yeah! Muscles are smart like that! ) They know when drama is coming through the door they know just what to do in such an event.
Now hold that stretch for about 10 to 15 seconds and you will feel the muscle begin to relax and loosen up. This is the next response from the muscle as it senses that it is not in danger. When you feel the muscle relax, lean in a little bit more and take up the “slack” until it tightens up again in response. You will find that a coordination of your breathing along with this routine will augment the process as you do it. Timing your exhales in time with each lean in is rather effective and enhances your muscles ability to relax.

How To Stretch:

The movement of a body part in the execution of an exercise from start point to end point
(such as the bench press movement that starts out on your chest and ends when it is fully raised with your elbows locked out) defines the mechanical nature of a given stretch. If the exertion of a muscle in an exercise goes in one direction, then the stretch for that muscle is the same movement but in the opposite direction. When you see a guy in the gym with an arm on a wall and his elbow pointing directly behind him as he pushes gently on his hand, you are witnessing the stretch of the Pectoralis Major and minor. The effectiveness and targeting of his stretch depends on the angle of his elbow, the length of the stretch and his gauging of the involuntary response and his breathing during the stretch.

Since I will not be covering specific examples of all possible forms of stretching, I will guide you along the path that I took as a punk kid. My best suggestion to get going on a good stretching routine would be to join a martial arts class such as Kung Fu or Tae Kwon Do. They are good examples of fighting style arts that emphasize full range of motion movements in their kicks, stances and forms and the entire idea behind training your body to fight starts with 10-15 minutes of stretching. Spending a year under the instruction of a good teacher will be the best way to ingrain the art of stretching and flexibility into your physically fit subconscious.