Truth About Stretching
Stretching has always been one of the most widely “prescribed” treatments for tight, sore muscles. Stretch before and after your workout, stretch if your back hurts – when in doubt, stretch. It has been considered a crucial component to any movement workout – for dancers, runners, high school athletes and those wanting to remain active as they age. Recently, however, there is more evidence to suggest that static stretching is not only over rated, but that it doesn’t prevent injuries, or even lengthen muscles properly.
How can this be?
Let’s go back to the basics of muscle movement: the brain and nervous system control both sensation and motor control of muscles. When we move, the brain receives constant sensory feedback about our surroundings as it figures out how to move us in the most efficient manner. The brain is the control center of the muscles. Proficiency in movement comes through careful repetition and practice. Muscles learn how to move so you can perform certain tasks.
The brain can teach us how to ride a bicycle or throw a ball; it can also teach our muscles – through repetition and practice – to stay contracted and tight in response to stress, such as sudden accidents or injuries, surgeries, on-going emotional stress or repetitive tasks. The muscles learn to stay tight in order to deal with the stress of a situation. If a muscle is tight and doesn’t respond to simple relaxation techniques, you can be sure that it is being held tightly by the brain and sensory motor system.
The only answer to habituated, learned muscle tightness is to actively reset muscle length at the level of the central nervous system.
What is required is to retrain the brain to retrain the muscle to lengthen and relax.
In Hanna Somatic Education, we teach people to reset muscle length and coordination through a technique called “Pandiculation.”
A pandiculation differs from passive stretching because it is active: it begins with a conscious, voluntary contraction of the affected muscle or muscle groups, past the point of their present state of habituation. Then, by lengthening the muscles from that full contraction, the brain resets the muscles’ length and tonus. This method gives strong feedback to the brain, allowing it to “refresh” its sensation of those muscles, and to slowly reset their length. This action occurs at the level of the nervous system, thereby conferring greater sensation, motor control and coordination of the muscular system. The action of pandiculation also reminds our muscles that they don’t have to stay stuck in a contracted state.
The difference between static stretching and pandiculation (the action pattern that all animals perform when they get up from rest), is simple:
Stretching is passive – no learning involved. Static stretching can cause harm if habitually contracted muscles are incapable of relaxing; a protective reflex in the muscles is evoked (the “stretch reflex,”), which causes muscles to contract back against the stretch.
Pandiculation is a learning process that resets muscles at the nervous system level. It gives more feedback to your brain, the command center of your muscles. This allows your brain to reset the muscles’ length, which results in more relaxed muscles.
So, the next time you want to stretch, try this:
- Contract the muscle that’s tight via gentle movement. Do it on purpose, and within your comfort range.
- Then slowly lengthen it, as if you were just waking up in the morning and yawning.
- Then completely relax.
Note the difference not only in sensation and control of the muscle, but also in your range of motion.
Hanna Somatic Education teaches clients to pandiculate tight muscles in order to reset muscle length, and regain brain level control and awareness of both muscles and movement. This is the key to long-term pain relief and increased mobility. How? You learn to retrain your brain – the command center of your muscles and movement – to relax, release and revive tight muscles. No one can do it for you.