In the pursuit of surplus amounts of muscle mass, many individuals will often neglect other facets of their fitness levels. Everybody comes into the gym with a plan: warm up with some cardio, do some strength training, possibly finish with a cool-down or some more cardio. Often the area that is neglected is flexibility training. I can’t say that I blame gym-goers for skipping this. Not all of us have the luxury of being able to spend hours upon hours in the gym. Many of us work 40+hrs per week; have a social life, a family, school and other items which occupy our day. Most of the time after an intense strength training session the last thing I want to do is waste more time at the gym. But, did you know that something which takes up minimal amount of time can mean all the difference in terms of your performance and injury prevention?
Let’s kick this off with explaining what flexibility actually is. It is best defined as pain free range of motion throughout a particular joint. A more in depth definition would be “a pain free range of motion throughout a particular joint which allows for optimal neuromuscular efficiency”, as defined by the National Academy of Sports Medicine. There exists a multitude of viewpoints on this particular topic as it relates to preventing or treating injuries, correcting muscular imbalances, optimizing range of motion, along with different protocols and recommendations. As a coach, trainer and professor in the field of exercise science, I don’t believe in a one size fit all or cookie cutter routine approach to exercise prescription, but rather believe that programming is highly variable and should be customized to an individual based off of a variety of factors. That being said in this article I will present some of the research on the various modalities and offer my thoughts and opinions. These are not recommendations for what you should be doing in particular, if you are looking for customized programming send me an email on our contact form.
Getting back to what flexibility is, it is PAIN FREE! Working with athletes at all levels, but especially what I have found with working with student athletes at the collegiate level, is that most operate with varying levels of pain and discomfort on a normal basis, and chances are most of you reading this do as well. I hope this isn’t coming as a surprise, but you really shouldn’t be experiencing pain at all moving through a normal range of motion. If you are, don’t avoid it or even accept it as a part of your normal everyday function, take proactive steps to first off prevent it, and if you’re currently experiencing pain, take active steps to work towards correcting it. If left untreated, overtime you run the risk of increasing altered movement patterns leading to abnormal joint movement and stress being placed on adjacent joints and tissues to compensate. The end result is a perpetual cycle which further degrades to more pain and greater susceptibility to injury and an ultimate decline in your exercise performance. Is losing out on gains worth it because you don’t want to take time to work on your flexibility? I don’t think so. Well what if you don’t experience pain, but you’re just super inflexible and tight all of the time? Well, you’re no different than the already injured populations, and you’re walking the tight rope on your way to an injury possibly. Not to mention that the increase level of tightness you’re experiencing can cause a decrease in cellular transport due to having excessively tight fascia and muscle tissues. This tightness creates increased intramuscular pressure which ultimately decreases the circulation of fluids resulting overtime in decreased recovery rates and possible evidence it may even affect metabolic rates. As someone who trains with a super high frequency, flexibility and myofascial release is of utmost concern to me. I am 28yrs old at the time of writing this article, and to date have been training a total of 17 years. During that entire time period I have had 0 serious exercise related injuries and have had 0 layoff’s from training. I am only improving in both size and strength from year to year as a result of recognizing how to periodize my training and recognize signs of symptoms of muscular dysfunction and addressing them before they become an issue.
There are a ton of variables which affect our levels of flexibility on a daily basis, everything from acute and chronic injuries to terrible posture, poor technical form on exercises or pattern overload, performing repetitive tasks, and the inevitable, unavoidable culprit—aging. As we age a number of morphological effects take place, now the degree to which they take place varies from person to person depending on their background, gender, medical history, genetics, lifestyle (biggest factor) activity levels, etc. Aging is associated with a decline in lean body tissue. I remember in my undergraduate studies reading a study which discussed the average rate of loss in individuals being anywhere from 6-8lbs with each decade of life that passes. 6-8lbs, those are some pretty staggering numbers, but guess what, those studies were done on sedentary individuals. Times have changed, and we now know the importance of remaining active throughout our life. Gone are the days of hitting a certain age group and ceasing physical activity all together. We know that while atrophy will occur due to hormonal changes and other normal physiological changes in aging, which I will briefly discuss, but the rate at which it occurs can definitely be minimized through training and proper nutrition. Other changes that are going to occur as a result of aging include a reduction in neural cells, an increase in collagenous connective tissue, and connective tissue dehydration. The drop in neural cells overtime causes a decrease in motor control skills and dexterity, an increase in highly inelastic connective tissue collagen along with tissue dehydration, will all work in tandem to reduce flexibility overtime. Are you starting to see now the importance of flexibility and its place in your training? We are all going to age and get older, and while we can reduce the rate of these morphological changes, the fact remains that they will still occur to some degree regardless, which is why you don’t want to go into old age being decrepit and inflexible to begin with.
So let’s look at what you can do to improve your current level of flexibility. We have a few tools at our disposal, the most effective would be a combination of dynamic, static or PNF stretching (if you feel like getting fancy with it) and self-myofascial release.
Dynamic stretching and warm ups are my favorite. Chances are most of you reading this are performing this modality of stretching without knowing it just out of habit. It is an actively performed stretch that essentially mimics the motion you are about to perform. Let’s use the squat as an example. Before placing the bar on your back and practicing a few repetitions, do you ever just slowly and deliberately perform a few bodyweight repetitions going through the movement pattern? Boom, your basically doing a dynamic stretch. It entails using your muscle’s own force production compounded with the body’s momentum to take a joint or joints through a range of motion. It serves as a really good warm up and preps your neuromuscular system for the impending task at hand. To date I haven’t seen any negative research on this type of stretching as it relates to exercise performance when performed as part of a warm up, other than it may cause some D.O.M.’s or delayed onset muscle soreness, which I guess I can see occurring with novices, but not moderate or even advanced trainees.
Static and PNF type stretches are probably to two best forms of stretching to actually have the greatest effect on increasing range of motion. This is the form of stretching most of us are more than likely familiar with and are performing often. It involves voluntarily passive relaxation of a fully elongated muscle which is held in a static position for a desired length of time, to the point of mild discomfort. You should not be pushing the stretch to the point where you’re in agonizing pain or to where you feel like the muscle is going to rip of its origin and insertion points. PNF takes this a step further and influences the neurophysiological mechanisms of autogenic inhibition and reciprocal inhibition. Fancy terms I know, but we won’t surmise, we will leave this one for a future article as it requires a little bit more of an in depth analysis. The point is that it works, and like traditional static stretching it can lead to positive structural changes (by way of decreasing stiffness within a given muscle group) and stretch sensations, making them both useful tools in your pursuit of increasing your range of motion. Unlike dynamic stretching, though, there is some negative research that exists which pertains to static stretching as it relates to the timing and its effects on muscular strength. Citing a study performed by Marek et al. 2005, researchers found that static stretching reduced both muscular strength and power by as much as 7-8% with short burst bout of 15 sec’s. These resulted in altered mechanical properties of the muscle and these findings were latter concurred by another study done Knudsen et al. 2005, that same year. Well 7-8% doesn’t seem that bad right? Do you stretch for only 15 sec’s and only once during or before your workout, or when you’re extremely tight, do you hold stretches for longer duration because they feel good and repeat for multiple bouts? Chances are the latter, so that 7-8% might be much higher for you. Not to mention when you compound these findings with research studies provided by Fowles et al. 2000 and Power et al. 2004 which found that the strength effects are immediate and continue for 60-120 minutes following the cessation of the stretch. So not only does it affect muscular strength and power out, but the effects last for some time, lending to the idea that if you’re going to perform static stretching, you should reserve it for the conclusion of your workout. This is usually the best time since your muscles are all warmed up and are much more pliable vs. the start of your workout. You’re better off doing dynamic stretching and some self-myofascial release at the start of your workouts rather than static. However, there is some evidence to suggest that it may reduce the likelihood of injury in those individuals who have impairments in their range of motion, if this is the case you may actually benefit from some light static stretching protocols pre-workout.
Which provides the perfect Segway into our final item to be covered, self-myofascial release. To date there really doesn’t exist any empirical evidence to suggest that you cannot perform self-myofascial release every day, nor are there any limitations on the times at which you can perform it as it relates to effects on muscular performance. It is essentially a flexibility technique used to inhibit overactive muscle fibers by focusing on the neural and fascial systems throughout our bodies. Common devices for this practice include foam rollers, balls, and handheld rollers to name a few. These devices act on our muscles by alleviating various trigger points and areas of hyperirritability within various muscle groups. Since there really doesn’t exist any limitations on the duration and frequency of training with self-myofascial release, I aim to include it as often as possible personally; before training ,mid-training if a muscle group is particularly tight that day, and post workout.
Now how do we put this all together? Well the issue that I most often find with the implementation of a stretching protocol has more so to do with time. And when you’re not limited by time, it’s usually just an afterthought until you’re experiencing problems, and even then, you still try to possibly skate by doing the bare minimum amount. With working full time hours managing a University Fitness facility, teaching, running my online business and managing my own training, time has become my most valuable commodity. Therefore, here are my recommendations for including the above listed flexibility methods to coincide with what the research in the field is telling us. Dynamic warm ups should be integrated in your warm ups to help take your muscles through their full range availability of motion and to help increase blood flow to the targeted muscle groups you are about to be training during that session. You can also couple this with some self-myofascial if you have some over tight muscle groups. If you do have some pre-existing limitations to your range of motion, perform some light static stretching and, if needed, continue to do so sparingly during your training session. Conclude your workout with some more volume and duration with each of the sessions. I personally don’t have too much downtime during the day, but when I do, I try to take advantage of that time and multi task. For example rather than just sitting on the couch to watch your favorite T.V. show, lay on the floor and throw your foam rolling in. It doesn’t take much effort and lets you knock out two birds with one stone.
Disclaimer
All programs and articles provided are intellectual property of James Shmagranoff. No copies or redistribution of these is allowed without express permission from James Shmagranoff. James Shmagranoff is not a doctor and nothing contained within this article is to be taken as medical advice. Always follow the directions of your medical practitioner.
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