The #1 Myth About Stretching

There's a popular belief, perpetuated by the health and fitness industry, that stretching helps with injury recovery and prevention. 

Patients are often prescribed stretches by therapists as part of their rehabilitation programme, reinforcing this dogma.

Actually there isn't any conclusive evidence showing that stretching is effective at preventing injury.

If stretching really did work we'd all do our stretches and be pain / injury free forever. But sadly that rarely happens in real life. 

In fact stretching could even be training tension and pain into your body! 

Do you find holding a stretch uncomfortable? A lot of people do!

So what's going on when you stretch?

There's few different methods of stretching. Let's focus on the traditional static stretches, Here are a few examples of common static stretches:

With static stretches you hold the position, pulling the muscle in a lengthened state. You might use a strap or band to assist with the stretch.

Here's my thoughts on why static stretches don't work to relieve pain, heal or prevent injury:

1) Makes the muscle more p***ed off!

If you have an injury and the muscle is irritated or inflamed how is yanking on one end of that muscle calming it down and making it feel better!? If you pull too hard, which isn't difficult if you're using a strap or band, you could end up over-stretching and damaging the muscle. Whoops!

2) Trains tension and fear into the nervous system

That stretchy sensation you feel during a static stretch is typically the stretch reflex of the muscle.

You have muscle spindles in the belly of the muscle and Golgi tendon organs in the tendons that detect changes in muscle tension. As the muscle lengthens it becomes more tense (like a taut elastic band). When muscle tension begins to exceed a safe threshold the muscle spindle and Golgi tendon organs signal to the brain to tell the muscle to contract and resist the stretch. This helps to regulate muscle tension and prevent damage.

When you hold a static stretch at the point of tension, you're staying in the stretch reflex. This can potentially have 2x effects:

A - desensitise the receptors to changes in muscle tension, which could improve your flexibility and range of motion. However, without also developing your neural awareness and control, you may be at risk of destabilising your joints and getting injured.

B - train tension and fear into your nervous system from the discomfort of staying in a strong, uncomfortable, even painful, static stretch. This is especially relevant if you have central nervous system sensitisation - where the nervous system is hypervigilant to all sensations from your body and is more likely to interpret even innocent signals as dangerous or painful.

Central nervous system sensitisation may happen when pain persists for longer than 3 months, trauma, chronic stress, inflammation and long-term lack of good quality sleep.

3) Doesn't change muscle behaviour

The brain isn't an active participant in a static stretch. Remember that muscles don't act on their own. They respond to signals from the brain and nervous system telling them to contract or stop contracting - "Muscles are the slave of the nervous system" (David McGettigan).

The brain can coordinate the muscles to perform complex movement patterns, like ride a bicycle, play the piano, dance or hit a tennis ball. The brain can also learn to keep muscles permanently contracted, braced and guarding in response to an injury, traumatic incident, fall, emotional trauma, repetitive actions or ongoing stress (toxic work environment / relationship difficulties / busy lifestyle). 

When you perform a static stretch there's no feedback loop into the sensory motor cortex because you're not actively doing and un-doing the movement. Therefore you're not changing how the muscles behave. The result is persistent or recurring tension and pain.

What to do instead

When pain and muscle tension is persistent or keeps flaring, it's often involuntary. In other words, you've lost sensory awareness of the muscles contracting and voluntary motor control to tell those muscles to stop contracting.

The good news is that there are simple movements you can do to reset the muscle and restore it's function. 

It's Nature's reset button and it's called pandiculation.

You'll see your pets using pandiculation to reset their bodies several times a day, and we pandiculated naturally as infants. Here are some examples of pandiculations:

There are 3x components to a pandiculation:

• A voluntary contraction INTO the tension of the target muscle (just enough that you can feel it consciously but never painful)
• A slow controlled lengthening 
• A complete relaxation, pausing to allow the brain and nervous system time to integrate this new feedback you've just provided

In other words, you're doing an action, feeling into the tension (without pain), then undoing the action and dialling down the tension to zero. 

This restores sensory awareness to that muscle, and eventually you'll regain voluntary neural control so you notice and can release tension before it becomes chronic and painful.

This is a more effective and safer way to alleviate pain, release muscle tension and restore function and movement than traditional stretching methods. 

Pandiculations are a core element of the Body pillar of The Befriend Your Body (BYB) Method. The other pillars of the BYB Method are:

1. Body
2. Breath
3. Be
4. Bond

These 4x pillars form a framework to walk you out of persistent or recurring pain so you have the freedom to enjoy the activities you love - walking holidays, sports, gardening, playing with children / grandchildren, keeping fit.

NEXT STEPS

• Book into a Stretch, Yoga or Pilates class with me - these are a good introduction to The BYB Method
•  "The BYB Method: A roadmap to reducing pain and moving with ease" A 6 week small group course that will help you create a roadmap of the tension patterns in your body and provide you with the tools to release that tension  - learn more HERE
• Attend a mind-body retreat - these are deeply relaxing, fun, social small group experiences typically held in various locations within easy reach of Worthing, West Sussex. The next retreats are "Rest & Reflect" half-day winter retreat on Sunday 3rd December (only 3x spaces left) and "Sun & Moon" mini retreat on Sunday 17th December. Click HERE to read more about them,
• Subscribe HERE to receive "The Movement Chronicle", a weekly e-newsletter delivering mobility and pain reduction tips directly into your inbox every Monday morning,

If you have a question about pain, injury or movement, want to learn more about my classes and retreats, or join my email list you can contact me via any of these channels:

• Email at norma.pearson1@ntlworld.com
• DM me on Facebook Messenger 
• WhatsApp message to 07801 867361.