Dance Recommendation | Stretching versus Over-Stretching

Stretching is without doubt one of the finest methods to enhance your flexibility and vary of movement. It promotes circulation and retains the joints and muscle groups versatile, permitting the physique to stay supple and vibrant. When your fascia is feeling supple and hydrated, it provides you a way of spaciousness and connectedness to your physique because the nerves within the fascia can optimally talk with our mind. The connective tissue in your physique can also be partly liable for your proprioception, your physique’s sense of the place it’s in house and the way it pertains to itself. Feeling a slight pull within the muscle in a means that’s not completely comfy is a constructive factor – it means you’re working to extend your flexibility. A productive power ought to really feel barely uncomfortable however any stabbing or sharp ache is a no-go.

Whereas stretching can alleviate compression and enhance flexibility, over-stretching may be counter productive and really result in stiffness. Over-stretching occurs while you stretch your muscle groups past their capability by way of flexibility and vary of movement. It means the size of the tissue is bigger than ones means to regulate mentioned size. It may additionally infer {that a} muscle is stretched previous its level of pure elasticity and wholesome tissue size. This will usually occur in these with hyper-mobile joints as they’ve actually unfastened ligaments which permit the joint to maneuver additional than it must.

Throughout the muscle stomach lies ‘spindles’ that are sensory receptors that decide up the velocity and depth of a stretch. If a stretch is simply too quick or too intense, the spindles set off a reflex arc to the spinal wire and again to the muscle groups to contract with a view to keep away from tearing muscle fibres. We need to stretch additional however our spindles intercede to guard us, leading to stretching with a sense of stiffness and resistance, locked right into a contraction and going nowhere. To maintain the muscle spindles at bay, consider lengthening into softness and preserve that size over time. It will enable the spindles to habituate to the brand new size and fireplace much less steadily.

Over-stretching also can trigger ligament harm. Ligaments are designed to help every joint and might get increasingly relaxed from extreme stretching. If over-stretching continues it might trigger inner shifting of the joint surfaces towards one another. By reducing the integrity of the ligaments, it might additionally trigger put on and tear on cartilage resulting in joint ache and degeneration.

There’s a high quality line between difficult our muscle groups with a view to enhance our flexibility and hurting ourselves. Not warming up previous to stretching is the first motive strains and pulls happen. Warming up consists of the inclusion of dynamic actions that may encourage the circulation of blood across the physique and enhance the vary of movement. As soon as the physique is heat, we are able to progress into static stretching and proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF) – stretching that contracts and holds a focused muscle in a stretched place. To study extra concerning the significance of warming up, take a look at our different article right here.