Roll into Stretch Part 1

Took me awhile, but I think I understand stretching now.

Question first: Ever see a lion, tiger, or cheetah warm up before launching into a full sprint? I've seen every Mutual of Omaha episode and I can confidently tell you that not once did a gazelle do band walks prior to throttling into high gear with the herd. Am I saying warming up is useless because cheetahs never pull a hamstring? No. What I am saying is sometimes the best thing science can do is help us figure out what might not be working, and in my opinion, static stretching doesn't work. Bold, eh? Let me explain.

As we dissect stretching, it's important that we discern between flexibility and mobility. Flexible is like functional, it lacks a universally agreed upon definition. My car functions on three tires, so technically, it's functional. Without being able to quantify flexibility, its definition remains open to interpretation. Tightness isn't always in need of stretching and it's important to make sure you know whether or not you're asking for extensibility from a muscle that has it to give. Some muscles get adaptively long and are in need of contraction.

Mobility is using what biomechanics have told us about joint range of motion. The hip flexes between 110 and 120 degrees. Hard to argue with that. So you should be able to do that, right? People struggle with it. Even with full range, there are other compensations that are typical, so it's fair to say that in general, people struggle with mobility. If static stretching worked, we could easily get into a stretched position, the brain would respond by shutting off what was tight, and you'd be on your way. But it doesn't. And any relief people get from static stretching is usually temporary. So let's simplify, and see what science says.

Muscles do what? They lengthen and shorten. That's it. They stretch and they contract. We've given a lot of attention to this type of tissue. We know how to make muscles bigger and we know they go away if underutilized. It's amazingly simple. Too simple. What's never been studied is fascia's role in human movement. The last five years has shown us that simple biomechanical explanations for movement are tantamount to saying rockets work because something goes BOOM. The next five years promises to reveal the importance of adding muscle release to your program for injury prevention, rehab, performance, and weight loss.

Watch this:

https://youtu.be/VCfclmGrjMk

You can see how interwoven this tissue is throughout the body. To say that the bicep flexes the elbow completely undermines this muscle's key role in reaching for the remote. We know now that every single part of your body is connected and we know the brain devotes a tremendous amount of it's time listening to the feedback it receives from your fascial lines. Think of your brain as a spider, perched atop it's web, attuned to even the slightest vibration. What I just described is proprioception. Your brain uses this web to send impulses or messages to the rest of the body, letting it know where and when to move. The speed with which the brain does this is much more impressive to me than calculating the speed of light.

Good proprioception means your brain can contact the tip of your big toe lightning fast. Bad proprioception means the message hits traffic, gets interrupted, or misinterpreted. This is why balance fades as we age. The brain's ability to make and get those messages where they need to go slows as we age. If we let it, that is.

Like any other messaging system, it has its faults. It's amazingly adaptive. That's good, right? Well, your brain is an amazingly efficient computer. It doesn't fire circuits it doesn't have to. Repetitive movements will have the brain favoring those neural pathways, while ignoring others. This poses multiple problems because once the brain pays enough attention to repetitive movement, it eventually locks it in, making it harder for you to move any other way.

So we need to pay attention to this stuff.

Solution: Determine which muscles are in need of lengthening, and which need shortening (not Crisco). Short muscles need to be shut off manually, like CTRL-ALT-DEL for your body. This is where foam rolling comes in. Again, I can't stress enough how important it is that you determine first which muscles are short before applying foam roller pressure to them. I hit a nerve once and forgot my debit card pin for three days, so be careful.

Foam rolling, or Myofascial release, when done consistently, manually shuts down a muscle that the brain adaptively tightened. That's important to understand because if the brain did it, no amount of yoga and dry needling will shut it down until the brain agrees. Then and only then, in my opinion, can you truly start to work this muscle back to its original working order because remember, a shortened muscle doesn't get blood flow, oxygen, or nutrients, and eventually scars.

Let's look at why it's so important to maintain all mobility but specifically hip mobility:

https://youtu.be/h45VqnyjGCs

https://youtu.be/qXKrLvyeKas

The more I learn about fascia, the more it strikes me how bouncy fascia makes us. Babies bounce, a lot. And with the buildup of fascia in the Achilles, with its layers upon layers of fresh bouncy material, you see where the term "Spring in your step," came from. What the cheetah and dolphin share are hips that undulate the same way, in or our of water, and that's what we share with them. They spring, twist, and turn on a dime, and so should we.

The amount of force the hips can generate is staggering. Like the cheetah and dolphin, we are capable of producing whatever we want out of them. Thorough assessment and additional muscle length testing may be necessary to figure out how to get all the mobility you can out of those hips. Then, stack on the requisite stability to mange it, and you're on your way.

I'll post demo videos showing you how to find and release trigger points soon.

 Stay tuned.