Stretching It: The Truth about Stretching

Stretching by Tobyotter

The perceived benefits of stretching are that they make your muscles more flexible and will protect you from injury. The truth is that they do neither. According to a recent New York Times article, old fashioned stretching just doesn’t deliver the goods. When the Times talks about stretching it’s talking about the kind of stretching you probably learned as a kid or at the urging of a coach or from a book on stretching. It’s the kind of stretching that you felt obligated to do but didn’t continue because you didn’t feel it did you much good. It was generally painful, unpleasant, and failed to make you more flexible. The good news is you were right to stop because it didn’t work.

This old fashioned stretching was over sold before it was understood.

New York Times reporter Gretchen Reynolds wrote an interesting piece on stretching Phys Ed: How Necessary Is Stretching? If you don’t have time to read it in its entirety, here are some of the highlights.

Women are more flexible than men.

Flexibility is not “a cornerstone of health and fitness.”

“It’s been drummed into people that they should stretch, stretch, stretch — that they have to be flexible,” says Dr. Duane Knudson, teacher of biomechanics at Texas State University in San Marcos, and an expert on flexibility and muscle reaction. “But there’s not much scientific support for that.”

The newest science indicates that excess flexibility is undesirable, unnecessary, and unachievable.

“To a large degree, flexibility is genetic,” says Dr. Malachy McHugh, director of research for the Nicholas Institute of Sports Medicine and Athletic Trauma at New York’s Lenox Hill Hospital and an authority on flexibility. Either you’re born supple or stiff. “Some small portion’ of each person’s flexibility ‘is adaptable,’ McHugh says, “but it takes a long time and a lot of work to get even that small adaptation. It’s a bit depressing, really.”

Stretching after a run or workout won’t lengthen your muscles making you more flexible, nor will it increase your range of motion.

There are two pieces to stretching a muscle, according to Dr. McHugh: first the muscle, second the mind. It’s not your muscle that becomes more flexible over time, it’s your mind and the message it sends to the muscle telling it to stretch a little further. The structure of the muscle will not change but your tolerance to pain will. Thus the illusion of a gain in flexibility with stretching, is just that an illusion. “You’ll start to develop a tolerance” for the pain of stretching, Dr. McHugh says. The fact that you can hold a stretch longer over time is a function of your mind accepting the stretch and not your muscles or tendons growing permanently longer. Sadly even this illusion of flexibility is fleeting says Dr. McHugh.

Changing the physical structure of a muscle takes months of hard painful work and sessions lasting hours. Still the changes you can expect are small.

And for most of us there is no reason to. “Flexibility is a functional thing,” Dr. Knudson says. “You only need enough range of motion in your joints to avoid injury. More is not necessarily better.”

IT Band Self-Massage

Massaging your iliotibial bands can be a big help if you run, cycle, or are experiencing pain in your knees.
The IT band lives on the lateral portion of your thigh and runs from just below your knee to your pelvis. It’s made of tough connective tissue and muscle. The muscle is in the middle.
When it’s working right your IT band stabilizes your hip and knee. When it’s not working right you might experience pain along the outer portion of your knee. IT band syndrome is the overuse injury often suffered by runners and sometimes cyclists.
Massage can help. To help you give it a try I've posted a youtube video: IT Band Massage Quickie: Do It while You View It. I'm planning to post a couple more, a longer version with massage tools and another with the IT band stretched a little.
Another IT band massage video I like is this one by Art Riggs. If you're experiencing problems in your legs and you think it might be related to your IT bands this video is worth watching. And finally this one by Massagenerd is also worth checking out.

Massage Your Upper Legs

Photo by orionoir

Every active person needs the benefits that massage can give their quads, hamstrings and IT bands. Here’s how to get those benefits whenever you need them.

Eight Steps to Upper Leg Bliss
Step 1
Choose the leg that most needs a massage. (for purposes of this example massage your right leg). Seated in a chair, keep your left foot on the floor and rest your right ankle on your left knee.

Step 2
Glide your hands over your upper leg to warm it up, from your knee to your glutes.

Step 3
Quadriceps:
Stroke #1: Place both feet on the floor, press your right elbow into your interior quads, relax your leg while moving your elbow in a straight line towards your hips. Don’t be afraid to lean into it. When you get to your hip bone go back down to your knee and choose a new line to go up. Repeat this process until you’ve covered your entire quadriceps. This should feel pretty good.
Stroke #2: Press your elbow into your quads and roll your elbow in small circles to get a deeper massage. Keep your leg relaxed. Look for tender spots and work them. Be gentle but firm. If you’re like me you’ll find tender spots the closer you get to your hips bones.

Step 4
IT Bands: Rest your right ankle on your knee. While pressing into your inner thigh with your left palm, use the fist of your other hand to press and press & roll into your IT bands. The trick here is to keep your IT band and upper leg muscles relaxed. To go deeper, press your palm into your inner thigh while pressing & rolling your fist into your IT band. To go even deeper, use a massage tool like the Knobble II to massage your IT bands. To relax your upper leg, try placing your right foot on the floor and massage your IT band.


Knobble II

Step 5
Inner Thigh: Rest your right ankle on your knee. Grip the outside of your knee with your left hand and press or press & roll your left elbow into your adductor (inner thigh) muscles.

Step 6
Hamstrings: Slide forward so you’re sitting towards the front of the chair and can access your hamstrings from underneath. Press & roll four fingers from each hand into your hamstrings while placing your thumbs on the sides of your leg. Keep your muscles loose and relaxed.
If you need more intensity than your fingers alone can deliver try using a massage tool. The Knobble II works great for this. Move back in your chair. Place the tool between the chair and your hamstrings and rotate your right foot in small circles an inch or so off the ground. This is a surprisingly effective way to get a hamstring massage while sitting at your desk and maybe even get some work done.

Step 7
Gliding: Repeat Step 2 by gliding your hands over your upper leg muscles, moving from your knee towards your glutes.

Step 8
Drumming: With your ankle resting on your knee drum, slap, or tap your upper leg with your fists.

Watch the YouTube video Upper Leg Massage to see what this massage looks like.

Test: OK, get up, walk around, and feel the difference between your legs. Then sit back down and massage your other leg.

Suggested Time: 3 minutes per leg (but take as long as you need)

Conclusion: Try variations on this routine every time your upper legs need it.

For more information on thigh muscles: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Thigh_muscles