The Facts About Flexibility

One of the more ironic aspects of my job is my relationship with social media.

On one hand, it’s a crucial tool that helps me connect with many people about fitness, exercise and health.

On the other hand it is the single biggest source of absurdity in the realm of fitness, exercise and health imaginable.  Seriously, some of the advice I see on social media about exercise is so nonsensical it’s almost surreal.

And although the foolhardy have no specialization – they are equal opportunity attackers of common sense - today I want to talk to you about flexibility.  It just may be my bad luck, but it seems like lately I’ve been bombarded with tips on stretching and advice on how to stay flexible.

And I’m here to tell you 99.9% of it is absolute bullshit.

Two of the more problematic issues with flexibility are that a) it’s a FAR more complex process than most people realize, and b) there are almost countless variables that go into someone’s level of effective flexibility.

So it’s impossible for me to cover such a broad topic in a blog post, but I can help with the facts to get you going in the right direction.

Facts.  No BS. No sales pitch. No outdated, dogmatic, social media garbage.

Keep these things in mind as you attempt to improve your flexibility as part of your overall fitness program:

The Facts about Flexibility:

·        Stretching Does NOT Prevent Injury

Biggest.  Myth.  Ever.  There is no evidence anywhere to suggest stretching prevents injury.  If it did, there would be no injuries because we would all just stretch and be 100% healthy.  Professional athletes would never be injured.  (Seriously – what am I missing…?) I could write a book alone on how silly this notion is…

·         Stretching May Create Injuries

There are areas of the body – the knee and lower back for example – that have very limited movement capacities.  Making them more mobile increases the chance of injury there.  Knee and low back maladies are on an almost epidemic level, due in part to excessive “looseness” there.

·         Looser, Relaxed Muscles are Not Better.

When it comes to muscle tension, “loose” isn’t better.  Muscles are always at varying lengths of tension to keep joints in their place.  But they need to have the very specific, and always changing correct amounts of tension to allow adequate movement without excessive movement that would create an injury.  Looser muscles often lead to joint hyper-extensions and dislocations.

·         Muscle Length is Controlled by the Central Nervous System

Controlling the tension described above is a very complicated process that is always occurring subconsciously in our central nervous systems.  It is a complex process and also a very dynamic one – the only way to improve it is to be in motion so the brain becomes more adept at controlling and maintaining the appropriate levels of tension described above.  (Because that’s how we use flexibility in life – we move.)  Stretching a muscle and holding it for an extended period does NOTHING to improve that process.

Am I saying “don’t stretch”? No. 

I am saying it’s probably not doing for you what you think it is, so be careful.

And apply the FACTS, not what the Instagram model doing yoga says to do.

About the author:

Jon holds a Masters’ Degree in Exercise Science and the topic of his research thesis was “The Correlation Between Static Stretching and Injury Prevention”.  He’s overseen thousands of training sessions and despite intense workouts, the next time a client pulls a hamstring, groin muscle, etc. will be the first.