Biomotor Ability - Flexibility
Paul McCambridge
It's important, but it's complicated. We had to strap Paul to his chair to make him write this, but we got there in the end and we barely had to whip him at all. This is a pretty long article but will give you a nice look at all the options available to you if you want to improve your flexibility. More practical clips and tips will be coming soon! Ok, read on, read it all. Don't get lazy now.
Flexibility
This is arguably one of the most under-rated and under-trained, yet most significant Bio Motor abilities when it comes to sports conditioning or health and fitness in general. It’s also a bitch to write about, because despite being somewhat under researched compared to other Bio-Motor abilities, there is an absolute mine field of conflicting information.
I could write a dull literature review showing ‘Study A shows stretching is great, and Study B shows stretching is crappy’ but that would confuse the hell out of everyone, including myself. Thus, I am going to give you the options of various models of flexibility training, give my own and various other opinions on each and let you make up your own mind about what will work best for you.
This is the only honest approach to this incredibly complex Bio-Motor ability I can do, because I have seen with my own clients that some approaches work well some of the time for some people, for others the techniques don’t work. Yet the same techniques that worked on some clients don’t on others, yet other techniques can work which on other clients produced crappy results! Confused yet?? Superb, ok let’s start
By now, hopefully you have completed your Bio-Motor ability table and realised you are as stiff as a board and need flexibility training. If you haven’t or can’t be arsed, try this quick Rocabado test to see if you are HyperMobile, physiologically normal or Hypomobile. Give yourself a point for each of these you can do:-
Quick Test
Legs straight – lean forward and put hands flat on the floor.
Straighten legs – Do they Hyperextend? 1 point for each leg.
Straighten Arms – Do your elbows Hyperextend? 1 point for each arm
Can you pull your thumb back to touch the inside of your forearm? – 1 point for each
Keep your hand flat, palm down in front of you, with palm of other hand push your little finger back as far as you can (please don’t break it trying to get a point!) – 1 point for each little finger beyond 90 degrees.
If you score 7-9 you are probably Hypermobile, you don’t need to read anymore as you will remain flexible no matter what. However, you are more prone to joint injuries. Try some partial range strength training (beyond my scope here!) and please stop going to Yoga.
3-6 is physiologically normal. You may benefit from improving flexibility in wherever you feel you are tight but in some areas you have adequate mobility and you can probably leave alone (will address this later). To see where you should be focusing, try these self stretch tests or see the stretch tests out of Paul Chek’s ‘How to Eat, Move and Be Healthy’ book
0-2 Congratulations! This article is for you Mr Hypomobile. Stretching is a real pain in the ass for you, and genetically you are tight. You are much less susceptible to joint injuries like Mr Yoga but muscle pulls and strains are your curse.
The Static Stretch Approach
So I’m a tight MOFO! I wanna be able to overhead Squat, or touch my toes, what to do? Ok, well one approach, and adopted by several CHEK practitioners around the world is simply to stretch where it is tight. So if you came out hypermobile, or physiological norm then you find out where is tight and you keep stretching this area until you can pass the stretch tests. So tight hamstring, then do a hamstring stretch. Once you pass the self stretch test you no longer need to stretch the area anymore! Eureka! Bear in mind though that if you are hypomobile you will always gravitate back towards being tight so you will have to pretty much stretch all the time to maintain any lengthening effect.
Pretty simple so far eh? How long to hold the static stretch for? Well again, the research varies, but it seems universal to hold the stretch for at least 15 seconds to let the Golgi Tendon Organs relax, then you can actually stretch the muscle fibres. 1 minute seems to be a long enough stretch on most muscles but some research suggests neck muscles should only be stretched for 10 seconds maximally or they can spasm against the stretch. It must also be noted here that Mr Chek would utilize a Propicetpive Neuromuscular Facilitative stretch (PNF), see here for details.
This can be done with or without a partner, and several references suggest this method as the gold standard for flexibility improvement. I’d like to note here that recent research suggests that CRAC stretching should have on 25% force on the muscle contraction, something to be aware of for personal trainers that half kill their clients during PNF stretching. Mr Chek also differentiates between Tonic and Phasic muscles (See Table 1) and it’s of key importance to stretch out the “tonic” muscles before exercising. Thus a Pec Minor/Scalene before bench pressing (to be discussed later) as these muscles are overly facilitated. Mr Chek says “You can stretch each of the shortened muscles or muscle groups as many as three or more times. When you no longer experience a lengthening effect, you have gained all you will gain in that session and should not force it or you can injure connective tissues.” To be basic, “Tonic muscles as usually deeper muscles that hold our posture, and “Phasic” muscles are more dynamic in movement. The bugger is that the Tonic muscles respond to low stimuli and want to do all the work at times, so, before an exercise you want to shut them off, thus stretching the Tonic muscle before the intended exercise.
This approach seems to have worked wonders for Paul Chek, and no doubt for several physical therapists around the world. Stretching this way, at worst will relieve tension and stress. People generally feel great after doing the stretches although I just feel it’s a bit simplistic and hit and miss. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had results, sometimes superb results, especially along with strengthening musculature that are long and weak with the stretching of the shortened musculature. To be fair to Mr Chek, he explains further that for best results the Tonic muscles need to have some myofascial release done before the stretching, thus some massage or a foam roller on the tightened area.
If you are still with me, his idea is simple. You are like a guitar and the strings need optimal tension. Lengthen where you are tight and shorten where you are long and weak. This approach will work well for most, but sometimes, especially with Hypomobile clients I’ve either had very slow progression which has gone back to supertight almost overnight, or no progression.
Other Approaches
So what other approaches are there? Well an article of mine wouldn’t feel right without looking at Mr Charles Poiquin and his approach on the matter. One, somewhat obvious, point I realised from Poliquin is that flexibility is a lot more than stretching; flexibility is the range of motion around a joint whereas stretching is the actual deformation of the tissue. Stretching is one form of flexibility training whereas weight training is another! Also you can forget breaking your fingers in my rocabado test mentioned earlier in this article as the gold standard flexibility test is an overhead squat! This single move will give oceans of information away about your body and you get an idea of flexibility issues in the shoulders/thoracic area, back, hips and ankles instantly.
Poliquin also states that stretching statically before you train is the best way to increase your likelihood of injury! John Paul Catanzaro makes a superb point that people don’t realise that stretching is velocity specific and there is a very low correlation (40%) between dynamic and static stretching! This means that a martial artist may be able to explosively kick you in the head, but during a sit and reach test may not even be able to touch his toes.
So it makes sense that to be flexible in motion, you should stretch in motion right? Stretching during running has more to do with dynamic and Ballistic stretching. Pavel Tsataouline would say dynamic stretching improves strength, co-ordination and elasticity and here is an example:-
A safe approach with dynamic stretching — start with a small ROM and each time try to go a touch further, building up to maximum range over several attempts.
Is it safe? Mr Tsatsouline says “Nothing is 100% safe, just ask your lawyer!” So if that has enough credence for you then go for it.
Ballistic stretching is arguably even more controversial, and frowned upon by many therapists. Keep in mind that dynamic and ballistic stretching are not the same. Ballistic stretching uses momentum rather than muscular control to increase ROM, whereas dynamic stretching involves controlled movements: no bouncing or jerking. Although touted by many as dangerous, ballistic stretching does play a role in the athlete’s repertoire. Ballistic stretching supposedly will actually increase maximum strength temporarily and is useful during warm-up, but it's reserved primarily for the advanced athlete. Progress from active to ballistic stretching as you would in sport.
How else can you improve your flexibility? Well anyone who has been to a Charles Poliquin lecture may have seen him perform his “miraculous” Poliquin Instant Muscle Strengthening Technique. At Fitpro 2009, a colleague of mine was on stage with Charles and his hip mobility was crudely assessed. To my jaw dropping amazement, Charles lay my colleague down and pressed on his face, pulled his ear a bit and re-tested him. His Hip mobility was massively improved!!! So what the hell is going on here? You can learn these techniques by doing Poliquin’s PIMST course which, apparently, is a fusion of Chinese acupressure points and muscle activation points.
It is an amazing instant improvement; however it doesn’t seem to last long. In fact when I tested my colleague again at the end of the lecture he seemed to have returned to normal. Now I can’t speak for Charles here, as this is his technique and I have not done the course, but another friend of mine has done the course and concludes that the improvement only lasts minutes. However, how beneficial could this be during training to increase range of motion in a Squat during the set? If you believe it’s priceless then spend your hundreds on the course. I’d love to know how to do it, but at the moment I’m unsure it’s worth laying out my cash for.
Poliquin is also a huge believer in Active Release Technique (ART), see this link for details.
Again I am sure this works wonders, and I’ve referred my hypomobile clients to ART therapists with good results, but unless I continue to send and send they seem to gravitate back towards tightness. So again is this a feasible option financially?
The late and Great Mel Siff mentions in his Super training discussion groups the wonder of increasing a muscle length under load. There is no better way to improve squat mobility than to squat. I have no programme design for this but I can clearly see with my clients that repetition under load of the movements tends to improve mobility in the specific move they are doing. I know a lot of strength and conditioning coaches use an approach like this.
To confuse things even further, I once had a client that nothing worked on. Static, PNF, ART, Massage. This guy was as stiff as a board. On a whim, I sent him to a chiropractor. Now these guys deal with “subluxations” of the spinal vertebrae and readjust them to help with nervous system communication to the body He came back to me after some adjustments and was noticeably more mobile. However the Chiropractor rang me and mentioned his very top vertebrae, the Atlas (C1) was subluxated (unstable) and because all nerve signals would pass through this area, nothing would improve his mobility or co- ordination without addressing this. He told me he’d have to see a specialized N.U.C.C.A practitioner who specifically work on the Atlas joint and address this. Now this is expensive, but my rich client was more than willing and got his Atlas sorted out. Again, I noticed huge improvements in his mobility and coordination for that matter, but despite this he was still a tight MOFO! At the end of my tether we tried something called Emotional Freedom Technique, see here for more explanation - and a miracle happened. My client (after bursting into tears a few times) said he felt a lot lighter. After re-testing him in some of the stretch tests his improvement was ridiculous. For those who couldn’t be arsed clicking on the link, EFT is a tapping method, mainly on the face and other bodily parts (Think Acupuncture but with tapping instead). My first thought was after spending £1000’s on all sorts of therapists, all I needed to do was tap him on the head a few times and get him to say he loved himself and hum ‘happy birthday’ and he would be sorted!! (yes, this really is what you do!) I have tried EFT on all my clients since to almost no affect on mobility, yet this particular client still has now an excellent range of motion in most joints.
I told you flexibility was a pain in the ass!
After all of this I happened to stumble across a gentleman called Gary Ward. Now Gary is clearly onto something big and I think his idea of 3d Stretching or “loading the fascia” is my number one recommendation. If any trainers are reading this you’ll realise the huge buzz in the industry is Fascia. Chuck Wolf, Michol Dalcourt, and Ian O’Dwer, constantly go on about Thomas Myer’s ground-breaking text “Anatomy Trains” which in a nutshell explains you have “Fascial Trains” or lines that run through your entire body. Everything is surrounded by fascia, all muscles, tendons and bones, thus the fascia never stops, ever. So stretching one portion of the fascia is perhaps pointless according to Gary Ward, as the idea is to create optimal tension throughout the body.
Gary’s twist is that all these fascial lines come from the foot, and although Dalcourt, Wolf and O’Dwer realise the key importance of the foot (all fascial trains start at the foot!), I think Ward is slightly ahead of the game with his incredible knowledge of how foot position and movement affects everything above it. He will address neck pain by looking at the foot. How does this link into Flexibility though? Well, have a look at this link and look at the hamstring stretching at the bottom.
In my humble opinion I feel Gary is addressing everything in one and I have had best results with clients using his 3d approach. He is incorporating the whole body dynamically into the stretch and if Myers is correct about his Fascial theories then I believe Mr Ward holds some of the answers to improving flexibility!
Also, some schools of thought believe your nutrition can influence flexibility. Food intolerances and heavy metal intake can supposedly affect the joint mobility but I feel this is for another article.
Conclusion!!
Thank God I have arrived here! And what exactly is my conclusion? Well it all works! And it all might not work! So mix it all together I say. I love Paul Chek’s stretch where it is a tight approach, you may need to stretch everyday. Improvements may be slow but at the very least you will feel good. Combine this with Dynamic and Ballistic work ideally in this order.
1) Dynamic: Before training
2) PNF: Before and during
3) Static: During or after, not before (unless specific reason, e.g. relaxation for tonic muscle, antagonist, or non-worked muscles.)
For best results got some deep massage work and some myofascial release work with a foam roller. Even better try ART therapy if you have the spare cash. Remember when training that you will want to train the muscle through a full range of motion, and as long as good form is held, try some pauses in the stretched positions, like at the bottom of a squat for some loaded stretching.
Also try Gary Wards 3D Stretching on the Hamstrings, this can be applied for the whole body but I need to keep some secrets for myself!
If all this fails, then my recommendation would be to see a good Chiropractor, one that also does ART is a bonus. Again if you have tried everything here and nothing works then the problem may be stress and emotionally related. Have a good cry! Try some EFT, speak to someone and then go back to the flexibility techniques and try again.
That’s it. I am never writing about flexibility again.
Article was based on Paul Chek’s Advanced programme design; Pavel Tsatsouline’s “Superjoints”; numerous lectures and articles from Charles Poliquin; Mel Siff’s Supertraining Forum comments, Gary Ward’s Anatomy in Motion Course; John Paul Cantanzaro’s stretching articles on Youtube,
As well as using the following books for base information:-
Stretch and Strengthen, by Judy Alter Soft cover, Houghton Mifflin Company (Publishers) 1986
Sport Stretch, by Michael J. Alter. Soft cover, Leisure Press (Publisher) 1990, 168 pages
Science of Stretching, by Michael J. Alter Cloth cover, Leisure Press (Publisher) 1988, 256 pages
Stretching, by Bob Anderson (Illustrated by Jean Anderson) Soft cover, Random House (Publisher)
Stretching For All Sports, by John E. Beaulieu Athletic Press 1980, Pasadena, CA
Stretching Without Pain, by W. Paul Blakey Soft cover, Bibliotek Books (Publishers) 1994
The Muscle Book, by W. Paul Blakey Soft cover, Bibliotek Books (Publishers) 1992, Health & Fitness Excellence: The Scientific Action Plan, by Robert K. Cooper, Ph.D. Soft cover, Houghton Mifflin Company (Publishers) 1989, 541 pages Stretching for Athletics, by Pat Croce (2nd edition) Soft cover, Leisure Press (Publisher) 1984, 128 pages
About the Author
Paul is no average personal trainer. Find an article, an idea, a course or any other fitness concept and Paul has done it, read it and can tell you all about it. From a degree in Sport Science to studying from the worlds best coaches, Paul is on a constant mission to find out everything he can about how to get stronger, fitter, leaner and healthier. He is also a food detective! If you can't digest, or can't get lean, he wants your blood!.. He will send it to the lab and sort you out. However, he is rumoured to be both a bad loser and a bad guitar player. You can hunt him down on his Facebook page.
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