Stretching: What’s the big deal?

When you think of stretching your muscles, what’s the first thing that comes to your mind?

Have you even thought of stretching in a while?

Is it just for ballerinas, yoga classes, and your cat when he gets up from a nap?

What does it do for you anyways? Well, here are a few reasons why everyone should stretch!

What does stretching actually do?

When you stretch a muscle, a couple things happen…

Re-arrangement: Sarcomeres (your most basic muscle contracting unit) slide from overlapping each other to lining up end-to-end and the collagen in your tendons (which connects the muscle to the bone) get pulled into a more organized arrangement.

Stretch Reflex: Spindle fibers (a stretch sensory organ) in the muscle are initially activated and cause the muscle to contract to protect it from injury. But with a prolonged hold, the spindle fibers adapt to the “new length” of the muscle and relax, which then causes the muscle to relax even further. This is why your muscle can feel very tight initially with a stretch, but after a prolonged hold it feels looser.

Lengthening Reaction: Golgi tendon organs (another stretch sensory organ), located where you muscle joins with its tendon, detect the tension you feel with a prolonged stretch. When the tension exceeds a particular limit set by the golgi tendon organs, they respond by turning off the muscle’s ability to contract (temporarily), which allows the muscle to relax and lengthen even further.

Why is stretching important?

Muscles need to be flexible to allow your joints to have the necessary amount of range of motion needed for normal function. Muscles that are too tight can pull abnormally on the bones where it attaches and cause other problems to form, such as pulling a joint out of alignment or causing a bone spur to grow. Therefore, stretching regularly helps to reduce stiffness and improve poor range of motion in your joints.

If you have any questions about how stretching can benefit you personally, or what stretches you should do, please don’t hesitate to send us an email: ptreg.lstc@gmail.com or call our clinic at (703) 450-4300. We’ll be more than happy to help you!