Flexibility

Do you want to be more flexible? If so, why?

Are you limited from doing things you want to, or previously could? Do you feel like it will give you less pain, or prevent an injury? Do you feel tight all the time? The solution to each of these is actually to build strength, rather than become more flexible.  

Do you know what’s limiting your mobility? 

You need to know what the limit to your mobility is. Is it soft tissue (muscle, ligament, tendon etc) length, or is it joint mobility? Your limitation may be tight muscles, or it may be that your joints only allow so much movement. This is often the case for ankles, hips, and spine flexibility. But, not always.  

You’ve probably tried stretching?

So, you want to improve your flexibility, and the limitation is your soft tissues... 

If you are focusing on stretching to improve your flexibility, it will certainly help, temporarily. The benefits from stretching tend to last minutes to hours. If your muscle is saying it doesn’t want to lengthen beyond a certain point, and you’re pulling it to that point, it’s going to revert pretty quickly. As a muscle lengthens, less of the contractile linkages that provide strength can crossover, leaving your muscle in a vulnerable position. If you want to use stretching alone to improve flexibility, you will need to continue it daily.  

If you are working on strength, in positions where your muscles are more stretched, this will likely give you a longer lasting improvement. This is because you are working on increasing the number, and strength of links that your muscle can use in that stretched position. As a result, your muscle will be happy to lengthen into that range more freely. The benefits of this will last as long as you maintain this strength (weeks). Since you are likely to be working on muscle strength more than once per week, this allows you to make more progress, and not lose your progress with a few days off.  

For example, both a deadlift and hip thrust will strengthen your hamstring. The hip thrust is working your hamstring in a very shortened position, whereas the deadlift will work your muscle in a very lengthened position, meaning deadlifts are a great way to improve hamstring flexibility.

Pilates is actually a great way to improve flexibility, because many of the movements take your joints through a large range of movement, while strengthening the muscles at the same time.

Stretching is certainly not a bad thing to do, but the best plan for increasing flexibility over the long term is to stretch and strengthen in combination (like Pilates).

If you need help improving your flexibility, give us a call, we’d love to help 😊