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Stretching for Optimal Performance

There is no doubt that stretching is an important aspect of a safe, healthy lifestyle. It helps prevent injury, reduce pain, improve posture, relieve tension, calm the mind and body, reduce stress, increase blood flow, and allow for optimal performance. Clearly stretching has effects that everyone can benefit from. 

The fitness industry neglects stretching. Too often people go through a workout and call it afterwards, missing out on the immense benefits of stretching! Stretching is one of the building blocks to solid, functional workouts and a safe lifestyle. Regardless of whether you are working out to build size, increase strength, improve muscular endurance, or enhance overall health and wellbeing, stretching can increase the efficiency of your workouts and allow for faster progress. 

How stretching allows for optimal performance

One of the biggest benefits of including stretching into your workout regime and daily routine is better workout performance. It does so by the direct effect it has on the muscle fibers. A sarcomere is the contractile unit of muscle fibers. It is made up of actin and myosin filaments. Myosin binds to actin filaments resulting in a muscle contraction. Manipulating the sarcomeres through stretching improves exercise performance.

Increasing range of motion

Firstly, stretching increases the range of motion around joints. By stretching muscles consistently, sarcomeres are added overtime. If one is to leave a muscle in a shorted position over a long period, such as sitting with the hip flexors short, that muscle will get rid of sarcomeres and become tight. This decreases range of motion. The more flexible a muscle is, the less energy is required to move it through a full range of motion. This means that the body can perform more energy-efficient movements when flexible. Simply, stretching increases range of motion which allows for better, easier movements.

Creating ideal length-tension relationships

Secondly, stretching creates ideal length-tension relationships. A length-tension relationship is the optimal length a muscle must be at to contract most efficiently. If a sarcomere is stretched too much, the actin and myosin filaments cannot connect and contract strongly. Conversely, if a sarcomere is too short, the actin and myosin filaments overlap too much and cannot generate enough force for a muscle contraction, which is more often the case.  So for a strong muscle contraction, the actin and myosin filaments must overlap an ideal amount.

Preventing muscular imbalances

Lastly, tight muscles can pull on joints creating pain and imbalances. These imbalances can lead to injury and cause altered movement patterns. If a muscle is pulling on a joint in one direction more than the antagonist muscle, that joint is going to move through an altered pattern that may lead to injury. These muscular imbalances can also reduce performance due to reciprocal inhibition. When a muscle is too short, such as the hip flexors again, the glutes will have a difficult time contracting due to being too lengthened. This muscular imbalance will make exercises, such as squats, much more difficult. Balancing muscles through stretching will allow for muscles to contract at their strongest potential. 

When to include stretching

Despite what many people believe, you do not want to stretch prior to exercise. What stretching does is relax a muscle. If you are about to perform heavy compound lifts, plyometric movements, or any other exercises, stretching beforehand would decrease the firing rate of the muscle and reduce the amount of force it can produce. I know, it sounds backwards to what I stated earlier. Stretching decreases the firing rate of muscles, but having flexible muscles with the ideal range of motion and sarcomere length improves contractile forces. So to create these optimal muscle lengths, you must stretch, it  just shouldn’t be done prior to movement. 

When stretching, the position must be held at an uncomfortable point for about 60 seconds. This allows enough time for the mechanoreceptors responsible for relaxing a muscle to respond. This type of stretch is best done at the end of a workout when the muscle is warm and can be pushed further than during other circumstances. Now go stretch and reach your optimal performance! Talk to our personal trainer in San Diego today!

Photo by apsubiology.org